LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






UNITED STATES OF AMEKICA. 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE 



THE 



Evolution of Love 



/ 



BY 



EMORY MILLER, D.D., LL.D. 




CHICAGO 
A. C McCLURG AND COMPANY 




1092 






Copyright, 
By a. C. McClurg and Co. 

A.D. 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction vii 

^3art first. 

IMPLICATIONS OF BEING. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Being, as Perceived 19 

II. Being, as Conceived 38 

III. Being, as Conditioned . 72 

Part ^£C0nti. 

IMPLICATIONS OF LOVE. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Creation 107 

II. The Genesis of Evil 168 

III. The Solution of Evil 190 

IV. Atoning Fact 267 

V. The Revelation of Atoning Fact . . . 298 

VI. Eschatology 328 



INTRODUCTION. 



Superstition, opinion, discrimination ! Three epo- 
chal words ! The first has had its day, the second its 
noon ; the sun of discrimination is dawning. 

The spirit of our day indulges no remark witli more 
complacency than this : "• The age of superstition is 
past." Though a doubt may exist as to whether super- 
stition is vanquished or has only changed its forms, we 
may safely believe it broken in some departments of life 
and largely superseded in others. But it may be well to 
observe what has taken its place as the mental temper 
in modern culture. But shght inspection is needed to 
convince us that the ground once held by superstition is 
now occupied by partisan opinion. Just as in ancient days 
a few tall spirits discerned great, dominating truths, set 
in a narrow horizon of intelligence, so now a compara- 
tively few discriminate the solid ground of verified accu- 
racy from the quagmire and quicksands of opinion. 
Not unfrequently we hear the most valid truths ques- 
tioned, and the crudest opinions positively asserted ; and 
how rarely found is he who, having ascertained real 
knowledge in one department of thought, is wise enough 
not to speak oracularly in other, though unstudied de- 
partments. It is much more easy to a lazy, dishonest, 
or cowardly man to accept as knowledge the assertions 



g IN TR OD UC TION. 

of smart or ponderous opinion than to undergo a pains- 
taking ascertainment of verities. The honesty required 
in the search for truth seems as rare a quahty now as in 
the days when superstition held the place now occupied 
by flippant opinion. 

Yes, the domination of superstition is past, the reign 
of opinion is upon us ; when will the age of discrimina- 
tion come? That it will come we have not the slightest 
doubt \ that it has more representatives now than in any 
former historical period is quite certain. Perhaps opin- 
ion is the transition from superstition to accuracy. 
Moral honesty has long been held as the rightful rule in 
action ; when it becomes the rule in thinking, men will 
demand as thorough conscientiousness in forming, as in 
carrying out an opinion. Then the badge of intelHgence 
will be, not information, but discrimination. INIen will 
not ask how much does he know, but how well does he 
know ? Society will then be possessed of the spirit of 
accuracy, as now by that of novelty. 

How little honesty there is in the world is seen in that 
but few, comparatively, " hold fast what is good," while al- 
most none " prove all things." It is only half of honesty 
to adhere firmly to one's belief; the other and better half 
is to struggle that our beliefs be correct. To this lower 
stratum of honesty comparatively few dig down. The 
surface stratum is sufficient for popular commendation. 

This apotheosis of opinion in our day seems a repeti- 
tion of the state of things among the Greeks when 
Socrates arose in mighty protest against its frivolity, in 
the time of the Sophists. Then, as now, there had been 
the failure of materialistic philosophy ; then, as now, a 
reaction from superstition; then, as now, the '^popular 
rage " was a show of information, readiness to talk on the 



INTRODUCTION. g 

surface of any subject. Then, as now, truth, justice, 
and good were regarded as mere conventionalities, while 
reality was thought to be in proportion to smartness of 
individual opinion. No better description of many 
modern leaders of popular opinion can be given than 
Schwegler's account of the Greek Sophists. He says : 

" The Greek Sophists, like the French illuminati of the 
last century, displayed an encyclopaedic universality of 
knowledge. Their relation to the cultivated pubhc, their 
striving after popularity, notoriety, and pecuniary emolu- 
ment suggests the inference that their studies and activi- 
ties were, for the most part, directed and determined, not 
by any objective scientific interest, but by external consid- 
erations. Wandering from town to town with that migra- 
tory tic so characteristic of the later, more special Sophists, 
announcing themselves as thinkers by profession, and look- 
ing in all their operation mainly to good pay and for favor of 
the rich, they naturally chose questions of general interest 
and public advantage, though at times also the private 
fancies of certain men, as the objects of their discourse. 
Their special strength, therefore, lay much more in formal 
quickness, in subjective displays of readiness of wit, in the 
art of being able to rhetorize, than in positive knowledge. 
Their only instruction in morals consisted either in dispu- 
tatious word-catching or in hollow rhetorical show ; and 
even when their information rose to polymathy, mere 
phrasing on the subjects remained the main point. We 
cannot wonder that they descended in this respect to that 
empty external trickery which Plato, in the '■ Phoedrus,' 
subjects to so keen a criticism, and specially because of 
its want of seriousness and principle." 

Recognizing the retirement of superstition and opin- 
ion, and the advent of discrimination, we recognize that 
one of the first suggestions made by this ruling word is 



I o IN TROD UCTION. 

the correct use of tests of truth. Beliefs, of all thought- 
ful times, have usually been cast in the same generic 
forms, five in number. These five forms have been 
termed philosophies. 

In the railroad switching-grounds there is a man whose 
duty it is to move a bar of iron the space of two or three 
inches. By this means he directs one train upon its 
course to San Francisco, another toward New Orleans, 
or another to the Atlantic seaboard. Thus the philoso- 
pher operates the switch in the mental world, and largely 
determines the course of thought throughout the net- 
work of science, literature, politics, law, morals, and 
manners. A mistake at the switch means wreck to the 
train. Failure and corruption of manners, morals, and 
government, with their calamitous results, are largely due 
to inaccuracies of thought in the domain of philosophy. 

The differences between the five forms of philosophic 
systems depend upon what each takes as a test of truth. 
It is therefore of no avail to advocate one system of 
belief or oppose another unless a reliable test of truth 
is ascertained. If I take the senses as the sole test of 
truth, I must become a materialist, sensationalist, or 
positivist with Spinoza, Mill, and Comte. If I take 
the intuitional consciousness or feelings as the only test 
of truth, I must become a mystic with Boehm and 
Schelling. If, again, the logical consciousness be my 
only test, then, with Berkeley or Fichte, I must dis- 
credit the reality of all external things and be an ideal- 
ist. Or as an eclectic I may apply the tests of " pro- 
gressive common-sense " and thus join hands with Main, 
DeBiron, Cousin, and Jouffroy. Or finally, I may reject 
them all and be a sceptic, with Pyrrho in ancient, Hume 
and De Maistre in modern times. These old schools 



IN TROD UCTION. 1 1 

of philosophy have wrangled for centuries, but the only 
outcome is to make belief a matter of choice. The 
adopting one class of truth-tests to the exclusion of 
others is the vitiating germ of each system ! But may 
we not find valid tests of truth upon which to found true 
''all-around " philosophy, and abiding knowledge? 

That self-evidence is the uldmate test of truth goes 
almost without saying, but the vahdity of the means by 
which self-evidence is recognized is the disturbing ques- 
tion. When a thing is seen to be self-evident we cannot 
ignore its truth, without conscious mental or moral 
degradation. But how may we practically come at 
things so that their self-evidence may appear? The 
means by which self-evidence is recognized are, then, 
the 

Practical Tests of Truth. — We may safely say that 
the organ or faculty through which knowledge is gained 
is, in a general way, the test of the correctness of that 
knowledge. The difference in sounds cannot be de- 
cided by the eye, but by the ear. The sense of smell 
cannot discriminate colors ; this must be done by the 
eye. In hke manner the correctness of perceptions and 
relations must be tested by the reason ; and the facts 
of personal identity, freedom, and moral sense can only 
be known through the intuitional consciousness. 

Then we say that the practical tests of truth are 
of two classes, generally termed consciousness and the 
senses, — when applied in departments of knowledge in 
which severally they are the organs of knowing ; not 
otherwise. The old wrangle of materialism, for exam- 
ple, arose from taking the senses as the only test of 
truth ; and because personal identity, free will, moral 
obligation, or God could not be tested by the senses, 



1 2 INT ROD UC TION. 

these truths were questioned or denied. This is the 
whole gist of the infideUty vented by rhetoricians and 
second-hand thinkers, who do not discriminate suffi- 
ciently to know what is the pother. The idealists, on the 
other hand, taking the logical consciousness as the only 
test of truth, could not affirm objects of sense. Thus 
these two schools shoved each other out of existence. 
Each denied the existence of what the other was sure. 

jRight applicatio7i of truth-tests is the way of escape 
from these indeterminate systems. It consists in (i) the 
application of the testimony of the senses in verifying 
knowledge externally derived ; (2) the test of con- 
sciousness in mental or spiritual phenomena; (3) the 
agreement or mutual corroboration of these where both 
classes of phenomena are concerned. 

Admitting this to be a true putting of the case, how 
can I be certain that these tests are vahd in their re- 
spective spheres ? We answer : ( i ) Only by their use 
can we acquire knowledge ; (2) They are felt and acted 
upon as necessary and final by all men ; (3) Without 
them there can be no progress. Art, industries, and 
sciences could never have been achieved except by this 
use of them. The progress of the world has been in 
spite of the old philosophies, which abused these tests 
by misapplication. Instinctively, or as a matter of 
course, men accept truth as it appears self-evident, — 
through the senses on the physical side, or to the inner 
consciousness on the spiritual side ; and where self- 
evidence arises from mutual corroboration of both sides 
the result is felt to be demonstration. If disagreement 
arise as between these poles of truth, it simply leads 
to the detection of inaccuracy in the perception of 
original facts. 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

But now comes np the question, Are these criteria 
of knowledge real? That is to say, these tests decide 
what is true to us, but, if we were otherwise constructed, 
might not truth be other than what we find it to be ? 
Or, in other words, how can we know that what con- 
forms to our consciousness and sense is truth, indepen- 
dent of our structure ? We answer : Science, arts, and 
industries projected and carried out in accordance with 
these tests, yet having for their subject-matter things 
and forces outside and independent of our structure, 
nevertheless result successfully ; that is, bring about 
progress. Substantial progress is a practical test of 
tests. The law of gravitation and our consciousness of 
mathematical relations are true among the stars. A few 
years ago the planet Uranus was supposed to bound the 
solar system with his orbit, but his wabblings were 
eccentric beyond what, according to the law of gravi- 
tation, could be accounted for by the influence of 
known bodies. Hence, astronomers believed there 
must be some large, unknown body hovering beyond 
Uranus and thus affecting him. No telescope, however, 
had as yet discovered such disturbing force. Where- 
upon Leverrier set about reducing, by mathematical 
calculation, the excesses of Uranus to definite mental 
conceptions ; and upon these conceptions of the logical 
consciousness he determined at what point in the 
heavens the unknown but disturbing influence should 
be located at a given time. By his direction the 
observatories turned their telescopes upon that point, 
and at the designated moment the hitherto undiscovered 
planet moved into plain view of the observers. Thus 
the rational consciousness of Leverrier, conspiring with 
data furnished upon the testimony of the senses, '' de- 



1 4 IN TROD UCTION. 

tected the silent footsteps of Neptune as he trod the 
sohtudes of immensity." Thus, it is evident, these 
tests are vahd, not only in us, but in the existing 
structure of the physical universe about us. They are, 
therefore, the practical tests of truth. 

Admitting, now, that these tests yield certitude in the 
relative universe, — that is, the truth as it is embodied 
in the structure of all dependent or relative existence, — 
may the practical truth, as ascertained, be affirmed as 
identical, or in harmony with absolute truth ; is truth 
in man one with truth in God? This is one of the 
weightiest questions of speculative philosophy. German 
philosophy, following Kant, held that no such affirmation 
can be made. The philosophy of the conditioned, as 
expounded by Hamilton and Mansel in Great Britain, 
followed on the same line ; and the sensational 
philosophy of Mill suggested that '^ there may be 
worlds in which two and two make five." 

Of the tests we have named, manifestly none can 
be brought to bear on this question except pure reason, 
the rational, or logical consciousness, — unless by 
revelation it might be submitted to the other tests. How 
much and what can reason decide on this question? 
We answer : — 

1. That the existing constitution of things harmonizes 
with absolute truth is, at least, probable. 

2. This existing structure has the binding force of 
absohite truth until an opposite system is demonstrated. 

3. The rational conception of truth is this : Truth is 
the rational system which may be explicated from an 
ideal or a perfect thing. " Absolute truth " is only 
another name for the infinite ideal ; hence, to suppose 
that there might be opposite or inharmonious systems of 



INTRODUCTION. jc 

truth is to suppose other than one infinite ideal, which, 
of course, is absurd and impossible. 

Hence, the truths which are implied in " the existing 
structure " are affirmations of absolute truth and must be 
regarded as the essential implications of being. 



pavt ^iv&t 



IMPLICATIONS OF BEING. 



Love is something more than the desire of beauty. . . . He 
who has the instinct of true love, and can discern the relations 
of true beauty in every form, will go on from strength to strength 
until at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, and 
he will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty, in the 
likeness of no human face or form, but absolute, simple, separate, 
and everlasting, — Socrates. 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



CHAPTER I. 

BEING, AS PERCEIVED. 
Most ignorant of what he 's most assured. — Shakspeare. 

" The Evolution of Love "is a brief outline of our 
conception of Being, infinite and finite. It is offered, 
modestly, we hope, though confidently, as a self-sustain- 
ing system which arises naturally upon the mind when 
freed from imposing preconceptions. It offers a view of 
being which, better than any we have hitherto found, 
shows the meaning of human life, duty, and destiny, 
furnishes a ground-plan upon which other knowledge and 
culture maybe built, in right relation and just signifi- 
cance, and renders the heart more susceptible to those 
motives which alone can make " life worth living." It 
is a conception which, we believe, affords clear vision 
both to thought and faith, and exposes the unworthiness 
of that bigotry which antagonizes reason in the name 
of faith, and that charlatanry which antagonizes faith 
in the name of reason. 

It is important to place ourselves in a favorable at- 
titude to receive truth ; an attitude at once humble and 
hopeful. HumiKty may free us from false assumptions 



20 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

and the pretentiousness of acquired lore. Hope may re- 
lieve us from dread of that sanctimonious mystifying by 
which crudity silences inquiry ; and both may give scope 
to faith and culture, which have been cramped by inade- 
quate, but cherished systems. 

That our use of terms should be the plainest and 
clearest at command is desirable, though we admit, in 
advance, that the defects of the writer, the nature of the 
inquiry, and the brevity of this brochure may impose, at 
times, a difficult terminology. As no small proportion 
of our labor preliminary to this writing has been to 
clear our way of the rubbish of old argumentation, we 
shall not unnecessarily encumber ourselves with its 
terms. The best we can do with many of them is 
to forget them. Nor shall we exhibit the metaphys- 
ical struggle of the clearing process, but simply attempt 
to outline the resulting conception. We have sought, 
at all hazards, a clear view of the truth, freed from the 
shirking and shifting of partisan statement ; the shrine 
where, in moral purit}^, logical accuracy, and emotional 
bhss, the soul may find rest. 

The method of this book is very simple. It is merely 
to recognize facts and what they unavoidably imply, — 
the method by which mankind have about all their 
abiding knowledge. This method is intolerant of 
surmises, plausible fancies, and "legal fictions." We 
find, too, but little use even for probabilities, but hold 
ourselves amenable to the question, What must be 
thought ; what does reason require ? 

Facts are enacted realities. Truths include, beside 
facts, the relation of facts and their inferences, but it is 
with facts as distinguished from other forms of truth we 
would chiefly deal. Fact, in our use of the term, in- 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. 21 

eludes enacted realities, both perceived and implied. 
Facts which we directly perceive imply other facts which 
we cannot perceive, but which the mind recognizes, and 
we must accept along with the perceived facts, in order 
that the latter may be intelligible. Otherwise the per- 
ception must be surrendered, which is to surrender 
knowledge. For example, here are two bodies, one 
living, the other dead ; so termed because motion, the 
evidence of life, is perceived in one, but not in the 
other. But the perception of this evidence is not the 
perception of the fact we term life. Life is the chief 
fact which differentiates the two bodies, but it is a fact 
that cannot be perceived. It is an implied fact which 
must be accepted with the perceived facts, or these 
bodies cannot be thought of either as living or dead. 
If it be not accepted, then the perceived motions signify 
nothing as to life or death ; and knowledge of such 
things must be given up. But such folly regarding life 
is not found among men, though it is often manifested 
regarding implied facts of another class. All recognize 
and act upon the impHed fact, life, though it eludes 
perception armed with scalpel and microscope. All 
treasure it as antecedent to all that is precious in its 
perceived manifestations. "A dog, living, is better than 
a lion, dead ! " 

As thus recognized, life is not merely a quality or a 
relation or an inference, but an enacted reality, or fact, 
imphed in the beating pulse and heaving chest. The 
questions of whether and how pulse and breathing evince 
life, are matters of relation and inference, but the thing, 
Hfe, is thought as a fact. This implied fact is of far 
greater importance than the perceived facts which 
evince its presence ; it is the enacted reality on which 



22 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

they depend. Perceived facts are but the declarations 
of their implied meanings, and are worthless for knowl- 
edge when isolated from them in thought. 

Implication is but a term which comprehends all facts, 
relations, and inferences which must be thought in 
connection with admitted perceptions ; hence, implied 
facts, as well as perceived ones, are essential data in prac- 
tical affairs, as well as in constructing a rational system. 
For data which we think and use as fact enter into our 
knowledge, as fact, with equal strength and validity 
whether they be perceived by consciousness or sense or 
come by implication. Physical science, that boasts its 
basis of fact, could not subsist as science, with all its store 
of perceived facts, but for its chief fact, force, which 
is supplied only by implication. Only by the facts 
which they imply can perceived data be built into 
science. We may term them truths or principles, but it 
is our use of them as facts which enables us to construct 
science. 

It cannot be affirmed that in perceiving material ob- 
jects we really perceive all their properties, nor can it 
be claimed that all, or even many, of the phenomena of 
mental operations are noted by consciousness. Enough, 
however, are perceived to enforce definite discrimination 
of one material or mental fact from others ; hence, when 
it is said we perceive a fact, it is this definite discrimi- 
nation which is meant, not a perception of all that the 
fact contains. And, in the case of implied facts, it is 
not claimed that they force upon our recognition more 
than what distinguishes them as definite facts. 

These facts of imphcation may draw after them other, 
even a whole train of implications, and so may give us 
a well-defined conception of an object which is not in 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. 



23 



any way open to perception ; hence there are objects 
perceived, and objects coticeived. The latter may be 
greater in every way than the former, but our apprehen- 
sion of them can arise only in connection with what is 
perceived. Hence, in attempting to trace the evolution 
of love, we must begin with some perceived fact, or 
facts, which must imply the facts and conditions of such 
evolution. If in the tangled morass of ignorance and 
doubt, termed human life, we can perceive a solid bank 
of fact from which to spring an arch that by its self- 
sustaining coherence may lift its extending curve until 
it rests firmly upon the shore of destiny, let us not mourn 
the structures which have fallen. Nay, better, if such 
arch already exists, and our task is but to locate it and 
try its firmness, not too soon can we set about the work. 
If such firm structure exists, it must be found in the 
implications of our being, and the base from which 
these implications are projected can only be "Being, 
as perceived." 

Perception is knowing. The question upon which 
many differences have arisen among philosophers is 
really this : What is perceived ? Connected with this 
are other questions : What is necessarily implied in the 
'things perceived? and what is merely apparent, or at 
most but possibly impHed ? It were a weary and worth- 
less task to point out all the theories which have been 
wrought from different views of these questions, hence 
it will not be attempted here. Let us be content with 
what all are compelled to admit, with what is perforce 
common ground, namely, that within ourselves we have 
the direct perception of being. This much, at least, is 
reality. We do not have this perception of each other, 
but each for himself, alone, knows himself as being. 



24 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

He may from this perception infer that there are other 
beings, but he knows, positively and directly, one ; and 
that is himself. He does not know how he can be as 
he is, but simply perceives directly that he is. This 
knowledge he cannot deny, he does and must directly 
perceive it, it is his perceiving self; he perceives him- 
self as perceiving. 

Sensational philosophy has tried to show that this 
self-conscious action results from sensations externally 
given. But this is an attempt to show how we are as 
we are, but it does not account for the fact of a per- 
ceiving agent by whom the sensations are known. At 
best, this philosophy can only locate the perceiving agent 
in the sensations, and thus require the sensations to per- 
ceive themselves. But in this move it does not get rid 
of a conscious actor, or the reality of being. Besides, 
when the past and now impossible sensations are, in 
memory, called up and reflected upon, this philosophy 
has no sensation to which this recollection and reflec- 
tion may be attributed. The self-centred being who 
consciously perceives sensation, recalls sense-perceptions 
after the sensations have ceased, reflects upon them, 
often acts emotionally and vohtionally concerning them, 
and perceives himself as so acting, is the one being 
whom I directly know. Thus the fact of being comes 
to me as direct and unavoidable knowledge. It is the 
first, deepest, and broadest of perceived facts. 

This knowledge is knowledge of action ; action which 
knows itself only in action. The act of knowing itself is 
consciousness, or self-perception. The absence of ac- 
tion is, hence, the absence of knowing, and for aught 
I know, the absence of being. If there are beings 
without action, I know nothing of them, inasmuch as I 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. 35 

know myself only as acting, others by reaction and in- 
teraction, but have no evidence of my own or any other's 
being, save action. 

Thus it is seen that the foundation of all knowledge 
of reality is the fact of my individual action. Stripped 
of everything of which I cannot know the reality, this 
stands out, a definite, conscious power. This is Being, 
as perceived. 

The term "being" does not, then, stand for an ab- 
straction which some have styled "pure being." An 
abstraction is nothing, and nothing can come out of it. 
An acting, determining thing can alone be a real being. 
Self-perceiving action, conscious power, can in no way 
be questioned, avoided, or spirited away. Nothing but 
annihilation can rid me of it. All efforts to avoid, or 
call it in question are only attempted re-locations, — re- 
locations in sensations of assumed external origin. 

"The science of being," Ontology, properly begins 
with this known reahty, and proceeds to trace its im- 
plications and recognize the questions it raises. The 
mind, or soul, as I know it, is this conscious power, an 
acting unit. If asked, "What is mind-substance?" the 
only answer I can give or need to give, is "power," 
that which acts. I confidently give this answer, because 
this power knows itself as action, knows itself as enacted 
reality, a constant fact. It is not worth while to ask a 
man " how he knows he has a soul," for the only thing 
it is impossible for him not to know is that he is a soul j 
and this nothing but annihilation, non-being, can prevent 
his knowing. 

But there could be no science of being were this the 
only fact that could be known of being. For, when I 
attempt to think of the general fact of being, I am shut 



26 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

up to one view, namely : I am a self-existent being. 
Existence implies self-existence, somewhere ; and, self- 
sustained being is a fact given in the perceived fact of 
being ; and, if I know nothing to the contrary, I am that 
self-existent one. But when I think further, that a self- 
existent being must be independent, then I must infer 
that I am independent. But I find, as a matter of fact, 
I am not independent, and therefore am not self-exist- 
ent. So, thought is confounded and brought to naught 
unless other facts of being may be known. Such knowl- 
edge, to be valid for me, must come in the conscious 
action which I know as myself; hence, I search myself 
for further facts. 

The nature, as well as the fact, of the being whom I 
know and each knows for himself is also given in our 
conscious action. That is to say, we are conscious of 
an order of action in our being. This order is what I 
recognize as the nature of the agent, myself For exam- 
ple, I know myself as acting in self-perceiving, in sense- 
perceiving, in reasoning, feeling, intending, choosing, 
doing, etc. Hence, I say it is my nature to perceive, 
reason, feel, to will, to do. Moreover, I know that in 
most, if not all, of these classes, or orders, my action is 
limited, and hence know I am not only a causal power, 
but know that this order and hmitation are imposed upon 
my actions, giving me the knowledge that I am depend- 
ent, — dependent upon conditions. 

The persons may be few who logically define or 
describe this nature ; its various classes of action may 
not be clearly or similarly traced by different thinkers ; 
nevertheless, all men alike have these classes of action, 
and know themselves as thus acting ; and equally well 
experience the conditions which Hmit their action. 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. 27 

Doubtless all men, equally well, know themselves as 
limited, dependent. 

Dependent being is the reality which I perceive. That 
there must have been a time when I did not exist, that 
there are places where I do not and cannot exist, 
that I cannot perceive anything except as conditioned 
by time or space, that my knowledge is limited to action 
within myself and what is presented to me by sensation, 
that my volitions are carried out by means of reaction 
and interaction with forces external to me, which con- 
dition their efficiency, I am forced to recognize in my 
knowledge of my own being. Limitation is as surely 
known to me as is being. 

The order of my action, termed my "nature," gives 
me, first, self-perception, or consciousness. This fixes my 
knowledge of individual identity. This individual iden- 
tity abides unmoved through all the changes of feehng 
and thought which I undergo, and all the varied sense- 
perceptions and voHtions I perform. Whatever changes 
have taken place in my physique, actions, feelings, or 
states of knowledge, this has remained unchanged. My 
deepest, clearest, and permanent perception of my being 
is as an individual unit. 

I perceive also, in what is termed " sense-perception," 
that there are activities or forces other than mine which 
affect me, — that change my states of knowledge and 
modify my feelings and activities. These give sharp 
discrimination to myself as limited by externality. Ex- 
ternality as here recognized is not an empty abstraction, 
such as the "non-ego" of Fichte, or the "not-me" of 
certain other writers, but forces which impose upon me 
the knowledge of reaction and interaction, — knowledge 
that I am acted upon. 



28 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

In some classes of my action I know myself as simply 
recognizing and interpreting, but not originating, the 
action recognized. For example, consciousness, or self- 
perception, is but a recognition of the fact, my being ; 
but the action which establishes and maintains the con- 
ditions of my being, I do not perceive ; it is not my 
action. In sense-perception my action is simply recog- 
nizing and interpreting sensations of sight, sound, odor, 
taste, and touch. In reason I com.pare perceptions, note 
their likenesses and differences, and draw conclusions 
from such comparison. The act of comparing is my 
act ; but the action which gives hkeness and difference to 
the things perceived, and fixes the forms in which I must 
know and compare them is independent of me. In like 
manner, the sense of moral authority is imposed upon 
me, sometimes much against my desires, yet my action 
regarding its rise within me is but that of recognition 
and interpretation. In all these modes of action I know 
myself as but recognizing and interpreting that which I 
do not posit or cause. Thus, my nature is known by 
me as a self-evident eftect, dependent upon forces which 
evince themselves as external to myself, the agent who 
recognizes and interprets them. 

It is not claimed here that my interpretation of exter- 
nality discovers the nature of the external, but simply 
the fact of its existence. But this fact is as directly 
known in my acts of recognition and interpretation as 
the fact of my being. The interpreting act is part of 
my action ; and the fact that I know this action to be 
merely recognition and interpretation fixes upon me the 
knowledge that I am in interaction with and dependent 
upon some external action which founds me. Hence, 
I know my nature is that of an individual^ but dependent 
power. 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. 29 

But though the knowledge of myself is that of a de- 
pendent power, it alone gives me the general fact of 
existence. It is impossible to take up the thought of 
existence without implying self-existence. Nor do I 
derive this implication as an inference from my own 
causal power, but it is directly given in the fact of being. 
My direct knowledge of my being is that of simple self- 
existence, but it is modified by the further perception of 
my dependent nature. 

A discrepancy arises here between two perceived 
facts, — namely, simple being and dependent being, to 
the atheist an impassable gulf. I cannot by any possi- 
bility entertain the idea of existence without including in 
that idea a self-existent energy. Self-sustained existence 
is necessarily in the general notion of existence. No 
matter how far backward I may suppose a series of 
dependent beings to extend, the notion of being is not 
filled out unless I find a self-dependent actor who more 
than merely recognizes and interprets his own being and 
nature. I must find action somewhere which exists of 
itself, and founds its own order of action. The self- 
perceived being, myself, whom I know as dependent, 
does not satisfy the notion of self-existence which is 
given with it. Though all Hmited beings stand along- 
side me, each knowing himself an acting reality, and 
though the number were indefinitely multiplied and the 
reality of their existence demonstrated to me, yet all 
these fail to fill out the thought of self-existence which 
it is impossible to drop from the perceived fact of exist- 
ence. Thus, though the being whom I directly perceive 
is dependent, the general fact of being, thus known, is 
impossible to thought without independence. The fact 
of my being is seen to be impossible without implying 



20 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

its dependence upon an independent being. There is 
no difficulty in thinking of self-existence, once the fact 
of any existence is perceived ; it cannot be avoided. 
We cannot get rid of it. But the real difficulty is to 
think how any being came to be. This ''how," which 
is impossible to solve, hes outside of human inquiry ; but 
however impossible it is to know how being is, the fact 
that it is, is the most unquestionable of all facts. 

A bright young girl in Sunday-school said to her 
teacher, '• Somehow I do not get hold of the idea of an 
independent, or self-existent being." 

The teacher repKed : " You are perfectly sure of your 
own existence? " 

"I certainly am." 

"You are sure you are a dependent being?" 

"Yes, surely." 

" Can you get hold of the idea of the dependence of 
all being?" 

"No; it is impossible." 

"Then being must be independent somewhere? " 

"Yes, certainly, I see the fact of being must, some- 
where, stand alone ; and that must be independent 
being." 

"Then, having the fact of being, given in your own 
being, it cannot be doubted ; and the implied fact of 
independent being, which cannot be separated from it, 
is equally free from doubt?" 

" Yes ; I see the fact of an independent being is given 
in the simple fact of being, which I perceive in myself." 

"But a little further. You say you are certain you 
are a dependent being ? " 

" I certainly am." 

" How do you know that fact?" 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. 2 1 

'* I perceive it in my nature." 

" But can you think of dependence without implying 
an independent upon which it finally depends ? " 

" I cannot." 

" Then you perceive two distinct facts, being and de- 
pendence^ in each of which is given the fact of independent 
being." 

That I cannot perceive the independent actor is 
nothing as against the fact of such actor ; I am unable 
to perceive any actor but myself. Hence the implied 
fact of an independent being is not placed in doubt 
by my inability to perceive it. But on the other hand, 
the ijnpHed fact, independent being, is all that can be 
thought from the two perceived facts, — namely, my be- 
ing and my dependence. Nor can one or the other of 
these perceived facts be thought, any more than the 
two jointly, without implying independent being as a 
fact. This I must accept, or strangle thought at its 
birth. 

To a theistic conclusion the line of thought from this 
point is short, direct, and decisive. Perceived dependent 
being implies an independent ; independent being is 
perfectly self- determining ; self-determination is person- 
ality ; and perfect, or infinite, self-determination is infinite 
personality ; hence the independent is the perfect, infi- 
nite or unconditioned person, God. 

This is not claimed to be a demonstration, but is 
claimed as the only view possible to thought ; and since 
it shuts us up to the alternative of accepting theism or 
wholly renouncing thought, it has all the argumentative 
force of demonstration. We must resign thought and 
play the fool, if in heart we say there is no God. 

While the atheist can adduce no evidence to prove 



2 2 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

there is no God, he queries, What is the origin of God? 
But this is not the whole question. The real question 
is, " How does being come to exist ? " To this question 
of how, human thought can give no answer ; yet the fact 
of being is the first, largest, and surest of all facts, — a 
fact which we all perceive. This perceived fact has in it 
the implied fact which cannot be gotten rid of, and with- 
out which the perceived fact of being is unintelligible ; 
namely, that being is at some point self-existent, inde- 
pendent. I perceive the general fact, being, in perceiving 
myself; and this general fact cannot be thought except 
as self-existent, yet it must be accepted as perceived, — 
a known fact. 

As being is at some point or in some mode self- 
existent, it is independent, — that is, unconditioned, — 
and hence perfectly self-determined. Perfect self-deter- 
mination is infinite freedom, infinite self-determination ; 
and this is an infinite person. 

Hence, atheism is not a debatable question. It has 
no standing-ground in thought, but is the renuncia- 
tion of thought. Between the theist and the atheist 
the question is : Thought, or no thought, — reason, or 
folly? Thought, contemplating the fact being, has self- 
existent, independent being on its hands. The only way 
to get rid of it is to resign thought, abnegate reason. 

Agnosticism is the rejection of theism because God, as 
God, is not perceived by us. The blunder of agnosticism 
is in looking for this fact in the range of perception, in- 
stead of in the realm of impHed fact. It overlooks that 
God is an unavoidable implication forced upon reason 
by the perceived fact of being. 

Pantheism is not so readily disposed of for the reason 
that it has apparently more ground than atheism or 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. ^3 

agnosticism upon which to stand. This is because pan- 
theism is imphed in the fact of self-existent being as given 
in the general fact of being as perceived in myself ; until 
I perceive that I am a dependent power ; other than that 
upon which I depend. The burden rests upon the 
theist to show this. It must appear that to God, my 
action is objective, external. 

Objection has been made to the idea of an infinite 
person. Spinoza first, in modern times, and finally 
Matthew Arnold advanced the criticism that the infinite is 
limited by regarding it as personal ; that is, personality is 
necessarily finite, limited. But this is an oversight in this 
class of thinkers ; an oversight which comes of regarding 
the infinite as the aggregate of all things. This is the same 
as supposing there can be an infinite quantity, which 
supposition is, of course, absurd and a contradiction 
in terms. Quantity is identical with limitation, and to 
speak of an infinite made up of hmited things is but a 
contradiction in terms. 

Another oversight into which these eminent thinkers 
have fallen is in regarding personality as quantitative. 
Their charge of anthropomorphism and fetichism, upon 
theists, is because they suppose personality to consist in 
certain defined limits, personal organization, physical or 
mental. Anthropomorphism, the conceiving of God as a 
man on a large or infinite scale, is certainly a fatal notion 
in theology when the personality either of man or God is 
supposed to consist in quantitative dimensions or qualita- 
tive degrees. Fetichism, the attributing life or personal 
identity to material objects, organic or inorganic, comes 
of the same quantitative notion of personality. Nor is 
there any radical change in the notion as it exists in the 
mind of the child who kicks the chair for tripping him, 

3 



34 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



the Bushman who worships his ^' gree-gree," the panthe- 
ist who has the cosmos for his God, or the atheist who 
rejects a personal infinite, lest personahty may impose 
quantitative limitations upon the infinite. We can dis- 
criminate the infinite only as unconditioned action, 
absolute freedom. So, also, personality is not a quantity 
or an organization of quantities, not a quality or a col- 
lection of qualities, subject to degrees, but is purely a 
matter of original action. Size, weight, form, or physi- 
cal organization do not make man a person. Neither 
do thought or feeling. He may have all these, and 
still be a mere animal or machine if all his qualities are 
determined in kind and degree for him by some other 
power. But it is because man determines himself in cer- 
tain respects, that he is entitled a person. He can sur- 
mount and throw off many of his limitations, if he choose, 
or can impose upon himself other or greater hmitations, 
but in either case he originates his choice, and initiates 
the process by which he is determined upward or down- 
ward in the scale of limitations. 

He alone forms his intentions ; he may intend injury 
to others, but may be restrained from effecting such in- 
jury; yet he affects and degrades himself by such in- 
tentions, which none other can prevent. He may de- 
velop or abuse his qualities of mind and body, and so 
elevate or degrade his nature, while his free choice 
either way determines his character. That character, 
good or bad, reacts favorably or unfavorably upon his 
natural qualities, and so gives them higher uses or 
deeper abuses, as he may decide. Because of self- 
determination, man forms a character, and character is 
made up of those qualities, so determined, upon which 
men estimate human worth. 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. ^5 

Again, progress is that which is attained, by individ- 
uals and communities, by comparing simple facts and 
from these drawing conclusions. These conclusions in 
turn, are compared, and from this comparison higher 
conclusions are drawn, and acted upon. So sciences are 
built, governments are constructed and improved, culture 
is amplified, and progress in every way achieved by 
man's self-chosen use of himself and his environment, and 
his self-determining power to transcend his elementary 
conditions. Being a person, he is capable of rising from 
the limitations of savagery to the wider limitations of the 
masterful conditions of refinement ; being a person, he 
can abuse the enhanced advantages of refinement and 
thereby bring upon him the limitations of a brute. 

Self-determination is personality. A mere thing which 
is determined in all respects by action external to it, as 
a grain of sand, a block of wood, or a graven image, is 
wholly without personality. Brutes, being but creatures 
of impulse, volitionally, never devoting themselves to 
self-improvement, or deemed blameworthy for lack of 
such devotement, likewise fall short of personality. 
Person is distinguished from thing or brute in being 
able to determine itself to be this or that, in any or all 
respects. I am free to form my intentions, and deter- 
mine my character, but am limited in resources from 
which to contrive or gain objects concerning which to 
choose and intend ; and also limited in my instrumen- 
talities, by which to reahze intentions. But these limi- 
tations are simply hedges around my personality; 
merely limited resources and instruments. In the use 
of such resources and instruments as I have within me 
I am arbiter. In this respect I am free ; without limit 
in the freedom of choice. 



36 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



Personal consciousness resides in self-determination. 
Hence, I am a person and realize my personality, not in 
degrees or quantities, but in actual freedom in certain 
respects. But I am not a perfect, or infinite person, 
for these reasons, namely : I am dependent for my ex- 
istence, I have not determined my own nature, have not 
adjusted my environment and am dependent upon 
forces external to me for my interaction with all that is 
external to my conscious power ; in these respects I am 
an effect, and hence, a dependent, or finite person. 
An infinite person is thought as one who determines 
himself in all respects ; his nature, character and envi- 
ronment are dependent in no respect. Independent 
action, or unconditioned action, however it may be 
phrased, is perfect, or infinite, self-determination ; and 
since self-determination is personality, infinite self- 
determination is infinite personality. 

That independent action is unconditioned is axio- 
matic. That the independent is an infinite person is the 
same as to say he is the unconditioned person. He 
has no characteristic of an effect other than what is 
self-imposed. Whatever he is, he is by his own self- 
determination, limited by no pre-existing conditions or 
principles. We hear sometimes of "eternal princi- 
ples," but there are no such things apart from the action 
of the Infinite Being. A principle is nothing but an 
order or relation in actions, estabhshed by the actor; 
without action or actor, the principle vanishes. 

Moreover, we can discriminate nothing as infinite ex- 
cept self-determining power, nothing unconditioned but 
freedom, and all talk of anything being infinite except 
self-determining action and its qualities is but a jumbling 
of terms, — a use of the word " infinite " in the sense of 



BEING, AS PERCEIVED. -^ 

** indefinite." The infinite cannot be pictured to our 
imagination, nor in any way bo grasped by our minds, 
except by logically discriminating it as an independent 
actor, the personal infinite. It is therefore impossible 
to think of primary being as other than the Infinite 
Person. 

These are imphcations contained, unavoidably, in the 
fact of being, as perceived. We close this chapter with 
the theistic formula : — 

Perceived, dependent being unavoidably imphes inde- 
pendent being. 

Independent being is infinitely self-determining. 

Self-determination is personahty ; and infinite self-de- 
termination is infinite personality. 

Hence, the perceived fact, my dependent being, un- 
avoidably implies the Infinite Person, God. 

^' I am, O God ; and surely thou must be" 



38 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



CHAPTER II. 

BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 
No man hath seen God at any time. — Saint John. 

Our use of the word " conceived " or "conception" 
does not imply a picturing God to the mind or imagin- 
ing how he might appear to our vision. Such idea of 
conception must be wholly renounced. It is the snare 
in which those thinkers are caught who lay down the 
proposition : " The infinite is inconceivable." To use 
the word in this pictorial sense, to set aside the dis- 
criminations which reason makes regarding the infinite, 
is merely to play " fast and loose " with the term. Only 
a logically discriminated conception is to be counte- 
nanced in reasoning. Such conception arises when we 
discriminate the rational imphcations of facts. A true 
conception answers to the question, What must be 
thought ? 

Perceived facts are worthless when isolated from the 
facts which they imply. These implications are the 
enacted realities ; the perceived facts are but such per- 
ception as we have of these enactments or of their 
effects. Perceived facts may imply in them a whole 
train of impUed facts ; and these, with their relations to 
each other, may force upon us a definite conception of 
an object which is in no way open to perception. 
Hence, there are objects to be conceived as well as 
objects to be perceived. Scientists, for example, say 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. ^O 

they perceive physical phenomena, which they account 
for by the conceived facts which they term forces, which 
they clearly discriminate as facts, but never attempt to 
picture. 

In discriminating the fact of being and its implica- 
tions we do not attempt to transcend the limits of 
human reason by trying to picture the infinite ; but we 
simply recognize such contents of the perceived fact of 
being as are unavoidably, that is, self-evidently, implied, 
and hence must be affirmed. In our use of them the 
terms "infinite," *' absolute," " independent," and "'un- 
conditioned," have a rationally discriminated meaning; 
and lil^e use is made of the term "conceived " in the 
title of this chapter. The significance of the title would 
be preserved if written, Being, as Discriminated. 

It is vain to say that we can have no conception of 
God ; for indeed, all men have a conception of such 
being, which they themselves form or accept from 
others. Some may say they have no such conception, 
when they only mean that they have not formulated 
their conception and dechne to do so. There are 
writers, even, who suppose they have disposed of all con- 
ceptions of God by terming him " The Unknowable ; " 
but in this they simply declare that he is not perceived ; 
and that it is not to the interest of their theories to 
admit their conception as a fact, or that it is too in- 
coherent for definition. All sane men, both crude and 
cultured, are more or less conscious of the implications 
of their being ; and from this consciousness they expli- 
cate the more or less crude conception of an indepen- 
dent or supreme power which underlies their beliefs 
and practices. 

There is no surer method by which to expose the 



40 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

fallacies of a system, the baselessness of a theory, or 
the false trend of a hne of practice than to lay bare the 
false conceptions on which it rests. Therefore, since 
God is the first, deepest, and surest impHcation of our 
being, it is a matter of the greatest moment that our 
conception of him, so far as it is acted upon, especially, 
should be correctly discriminated. It may be claimed 
that '^revelation has already given us the true con- 
ception of God." Without our disputing or affirming 
this claim here, the thought suggests itself that, as mat- 
ters have stood for several centuries among believers in 
revelation, it would be worth their while either to define 
or harmonize the various conceptions which men have 
read into that revelation. 

Having seen in the preceding chapter the necessary 
imphcations of being, as perceived, we now seek to ascer- 
tain the necessary implications of being, as conceived ; 
or in other words, having seen that the perceived fact 
of being, and the perceived fact of dependence com- 
pel us to accept the implied fact of an independent per- 
son, we now proceed to ascertain what is implied in this 
independent, or infinite person. In accepting him, what 
further must we accept ? 

Pe7'fect action, simply, is what we recognize as infinite 
being. This conception is not made up of several ideas 
pinned together, but stands out as the primary power, 
which we must recognize as the independent, uncondi- 
tioned unit. This conception implies that — 

1. Being is acting, and acting is being; and ceasing 
to act is ceasing to be ; and that — 

2. Perfect action is perfect being, a consciously self 
sustained nature, an order of action which is wholly 
self-dependent; — that is, independent. 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 4 1 

But we desire to ascertain what kifid of action is per- 
fect action. There are some kinds, or classes, of action 
which cannot be perfect, or unconditioned, however 
powerful or free, simply for the reason that they are of 
a kind which is necessarily conditioned or related. Per- 
fect action must imply more than merely dynamic per- 
fection, mere almightiness. Reality is action, action is 
life, or being, but it takes perfectly adjusted action to 
fill out the notion of perfect reality, perfect action, per- 
fect life, or being. That is to say, it must be thought 
perfect in quality, as well as without degree. Uncondi- 
tioned freedom realizing qualitative perfection can alone 
satisfy the conception of perfect action. This implies 
that this conception includes an idea or notion of the 
nature of that action. The next step, therefore, in our 
outline is to define this notion of the nature of perfect 
action. 

We think of a human mind, not as an aggregate of 
sensation, perception, consciousness, reason, memory, 
imagination, feeling, and will, but as a single being who 
acts in these various modes or orders. In the same 
sense the infinite person may be regarded in various 
orders, modes, or classes of action. Hence we recog- 
nize two general classes of personal action. Subjective 
and Objective. 

Subjective action is that which we identify with being; 
objective, with doing. The former includes all that 
pertains to self-determination, or in any way determines 
the subject, the person ; the latter, all that pertains to 
choices, intentions, or volitions which are directed exter- 
nally, or determine objects. In common usage the 
terms " act " and " action " generally signify objective 
action. For example : " We judge a man's character 



42 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

by his actions." But in exact usage all being is action. 
In thinking of reality we think of action, without which 
being cannot be. It is in this exact use of the term we 
speak of subjective and objective action. 

The nature is usually identified with subjective action. 
To speak of the nature of the infinite Person relates, 
primarily, to his subjective or egoistic action. We do 
not conceive of his nature as an order of action pre- 
scribed by any thing or principle external to himself, to 
mould this nature, but we discriminate that independent 
action is consciously self-determined ; an order or nature 
of being, concerning which it is competent for us to 
inquire : What kind of a being is he ; what is his 
nature ? 

Such inquiry may take either of two directions : first, 
as to what nature is implied in an unconditioned or 
infinite person ; or, secondly, What do his objective 
activities in the world indicate regarding his nature? 
The first question is ontological^ the second, cosmological. 
The latter inquiry involves two assumptions, namely : 
that world-phenomena are his objective activities ; and 
that these are in harmony with his nature and constitute 
an intelligible exponent of the same. We eschew this 
cosmological inquiry for the reason that in itself it is 
indeterminate, and must at last depend upon ontology. 
Its course is strewed with many failures. For the 
present we pursue the ontological method. 

What does reason affirm as to the nature of perfect 
action? or, what is the nature of the unconditioned 
person ? 

As volition, in me, has to do with intentions and 
objective activities, I distinguish that action from my 
nature as given in my consciousness. That is to say, 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED, ^^ 

the order of action which constitutes my being is my 
nature, and is not established, or posited, by me. That 
order of ray action which is termed voHtion determines 
the quahties which make up my character and is pos- 
ited by me. My nature is an effect, dependent in the 
fixed form of action in which I consciously perceive it ; 
while, on the other hand, my voHtions are my free, 
self-originated action. My nature is given me. My 
character is determined by myself. But, when we 
think of the independent One we must conceive his 
nature, as well as character, as being volitionally self- 
determined. Hence, we must think of him as existing 
according to his self-chosen order. That is to say, 
nature and character are one in him ; hence, — 

Perfect action, conscious and volitional, is the 

HIGHEST generalization, THE ULTIMATE UNIT, THE UN- 
CONDITIONED NATURE OF INFINITE BEING. 

The preceding sentence is distinctively a corner-stone 
in our system. Perfect action is here recognized as 
ultimate unity, the goal of philosophy, — infinite, uncon- 
ditioned reality. It is perfect being, perfectly self- 
conscious, the perfect person. 

Perfect action is perfect self-determination, or the 
independent realization of a perfect egoism. This 
affirmation scarcely needs to be thus reiterated, but, 
perhaps, needs a more explicit notice at this point. 

A work of art is termed the actualization or realiza- 
tion of a conception when it fixes that conception as 
an enacted thing in perceptible form. The Eiffel tower 
existed at first as a conception in the thought of the 
architect, but this conception was not a real tower. A 
very minute description of this tower was published, but 
this description was not a tower, and could serve none 



44 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

of the purposes for which the tower was mtended. 
Only the actual building of the tower made it a reality. 
This was its determination. The action which thus 
fixes a conception, or practically carries out a definition 
or description, is determination. When a conception, 
or ideal, is thus actualized it is a determined, a real 
thing. Thus practically carrying-out, realizing, actualiz- 
ing, or determining is simply enacting that which may 
be thought, either as a previously formed conception 
or as the self-consciousness of what is being enacted. 

When a person enacts in himself that which he thinks 
or desires to be he determines himself in that respect. 
His thought or desire is no longer a mere conception or 
wish, but a reality. This is self-determination. 

The person who conceives what manner of person he 
would be has, in this conception, an ideal self; and his 
effort to act out that ideal is his self-determination. If 
he succeeds in bringing his actual self up to the stan- 
dard of this ideal self his self-determination is successful. 
This is conditioned self-determination ; conditioned by 
the previously formed conception, or ideal. It is this 
power of self-determination, thus and otherwise condi- 
tioned, that constitutes conditioned, or dependent 
personality. 

Perfect action is not conditioned by a previously 
formed conception, or ideal, which it seeks to realize, 
but its self -consciousness, as in our thinking we separate 
it from the action, is the absolute, or infinite ideal. 
Hence, we have a clear conception that perfect action 
is unconditioned even by an objective ideal. It is 
perfect self-determination. 

The "ultimate unit" we find in perfect self-determi- 
nation. As perfect action is independent of interaction 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. ^^ 

or any condition, it must be a unit. It is not an inter- 
action of several forces ; for that would be related ac- 
tion, and hence not independent, but conditioned. 
The existence of more than one infinite being cannot 
be thought ; for that would imply mutual dependence 
and limitation. Neither can perfect action be objective 
action ; for the reason that it must then act in relation 
to its object. Perfect action must be thought a self- 
realizing subject. Perfect, in the sense of independent, 
or unconditioned, action it is without interaction and 
without relation. It is simply a perfectly self-deter- 
mined unit. 

In a unit which is perfectly self-determined is the one- 
ness of '* thought and thing ; " or, rather, the oneness 
of thought and action. Finite minds find it difficult to 
identify thought and act. This difficulty arises from 
the fact that their self-determination is conditioned ; and 
prominent among their conditions is that of the separate 
actions of judgment and will; involving the acquirement 
of sufficient knowledge to form a conception or judg- 
ment upon which by their will to determine themselves. 
On this account their determining intentions succeed 
their thought ; and the thought is but an ideal or defini- 
tion, not a reality, not a real thing until it is enacted. 

Nevertheless, when we discriminate independent self- 
determination we recognize that perfect reality in which 
perfect thought is self-conscious, that perfect action 
which is perfectly conscious of itself. The self-con- 
sciousness of perfect thought is, identically, the self-con- 
sciousness of perfect action. Consciously perfect action 
and consciously perfect thought are only other phras- 
ings of consciously perfect being. 

We admit that we may well hesitate to claim that we 



46 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



find here the ultimate oneness of '' thought and 
thing ; '^ since failure in this attempt has been honored 
by some of the greatest names in the history of philoso- 
phy. Our finite minds naturally query, How can 
thought and act be one? But this impenetrable " How" 
of being is distinctly what has nothing to do with this 
matter. The truth is we cannot see that the facts can 
be otherwise than as stated above. As Professor Bowne 
has pertinently said, it is asking " how being is made ; " 
a question which, perhaps, only an infinite thinker can 
ever understand. 

However, we see no flaw in the reasoning which 
leads us to affirm that perfect self-determination is per- 
fectly self-conscious. Certainly, action or being cannot 
be perfect if it is not perfectly conscious of itself. 
Hence, we must say, action cannot be perfect without 
perfect thought ; and perfect thought cannot exist ex- 
cept in perfect action. The perfection of either is in 
their oneness. We cannot see otherwise than that un- 
conditioned, perfect self-determination is one in thought 
and act. // is the consciously perfect reality. 

From this unit we explicate thought and thing. We 
separate, in our thinking, the affirmations of qualities, 
or properties, which this unit implies or founds. Hence 
we may affirm that, as the consciousness of perfect 
reality, it is the perfect thought, or infinite ideal. But 
in the supposed absence of infinite consciousness it 
cannot be affirmed as perfect action ; neither can infi- 
nite consciousness be affirmed in the supposed lack of 
perfect action. 

Although perfect action is not compound but simple, 
yet we may affirm of it or explicate from it various 
phases or qualities of this simple unit, without impairing 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. ^y 

our conception of it as an unconditioned unit. Al- 
though perfect personahty is included in the affirmations 
we have already made, it may maintain clearness of 
view to emphasize at this point that — 

Perfect action is perfectly intentional. — We affirm of 
this unit both absolute will and absolute • purpose ; by 
which we mean that it is absolutely free action, free as 
caprice ; and yet has a fixed, eternal intent. Self-deter- 
mination is essentially intention. In the various classes 
of our action there is none in which we are self-deter- 
mining, except that in which thought and act are 
united ; and this is the action which we term intending, 
or the intent or inner purpose. But, with us, there are 
many conditions and classes of self-conditioning action 
which are needed as preparatory to forming an inten- 
tion ; and many in giving it effect. Yet we do not 
accomphsh self-determination without intention, ho mat- 
ter how full and favorable our conditions may be. And 
although we are often prevented from carrying out our 
intention externally, by external restraint, or by lack of 
means or opportunity, yet it determines our inner char- 
acter. An intention to murder gives a man the character 
of a murderer although he may never have had the op- 
portunity to shed a drop of blood. Intent is, subject- 
ively, the union of thought and act. It determines the 
ego, the inner real self. 

But we are conscious of having constructed, formed, 
this intention ; of having united thought and act, or desire 
and will. Hence we praise or blame each other for only 
what we have intended. But in perfect being inten- 
tion is not conditioned, not made up of prehminary or 
accessory self-conditioning, but is unconditioned, and 
hence is perfect or independent self-determination. 



48 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

We easily see that if we were thus independent of all 
conditions, needed nothing by which to form or effectu- 
ate our self-determination, we should be in our nature 
as well as character as we intend. Our intent would be 
our nature, as now it is our character. Hence it is cor- 
rect to say that the nature of perfect action is uncondi- 
tioned, eternal intent. 

The habitual intent of a man's life is that which he 
would be, and accounts for what he does or would do. 
It is the determining force in each person. One is 
intent upon fame, another on wealth, and another upon 
pleasure. It determines his character and accounts for 
his minor intentions and external acts. It is the su- 
preme intention of his life. It is in this sense that we 
say concerning the nature of the independent person : 
The unconditioned intention is the self-determination 
of perfect being. Intention is realizatio?i with him. To 
be less were to be conditioned. Hence the nature of 
perfect action, perfect self-determination, the absolute 
reahty, the independent person, is intentionally perfect 
being. 

It is devoted realization of perfect being. When the 
intent involves the entire being, determines all his quali- 
ties, and contemplates neither change nor end, it may be 
termed devotement. And if this intent realizes itself 
immediately, achieves its realization exclusive of every 
other order of action, it is unconditioned, independent 
devotement. It is at once devotement and achieve- 
ment, devoted achievement. Thus independent it is 
not compound, but simple, — action which is at once 
the life in which are infinite thought, wish, and will. 

Unconditioned devotement cannot be thought except 
as purely egoistic, perfectly free, perfectly self-conscious. 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 40 

perfectly self-chosen, definite, and supreme. It has in 
it nothing aimless, fortuitous, or fatalistic. As devote- 
ment is central in conditioned personality, it is single 
and eternal in the unconditioned person. It is neither 
obedience on the one hand, nor caprice on the other. 
Independent, it obeys neither necessity, instinct, nor con- 
ditions. Devoted, it is of infinite meaning, interest, and 
purpose. It is in no sense or degree without inten- 
tional significance. 

In man, devotement is the self-disposing force which 
can adjust all the energies of his being. For example : 
Here is a man led out to be beheaded. This catas- 
trophe has not been unforeseen by him. It had been 
contemplated in his self-adjustment ; and the course of 
life which has led up to this scene has been one of 
almost unrivalled hardship. Its sufferings have been 
equalled only by its renunciations ; for the sufferer is of 
gentle breeding, scholarship, and saintly character. His 
was high caste, but he renounced it ; repute, but he for- 
feited it ; political promise, but he turned his back upon 
it ; wealth, but he chose to be an outcast. As a preacher 
he made long tours of the Roman Empire, paying his 
way from the earnings of his own hands. Nothing in 
the circumstances of this lawyer and scholar, nothing of 
worldly gain or ambition can explain his self-determined 
attitude as a preacher. He had, though in chains, 
argued and taught with Roman thinkers ; though hun- 
gry, instructed philosophers at Athens. Friendless and 
buffeted he had, by his eloquence, disarmed mobs at 
Jerusalem ; and though a prisoner, had made kings and 
courts quail under his persuasive power. Neither insan- 
ity nor depravity can be a solution of this marvel of self- 
abnegation. Back of every other order of action, back 

4 



^O THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

of suffering, labor, speech, reasoning, planning, praying ; 
back of all these must be found the determining action 
which disposed and sustained the subject of this career 
of restless and apparently wasteful endeavor. He him- 
self disclosed the secret which had puzzled friend 
and foe. Devotement to the realization of an ideal 
self, that ideal self for which he had been " appre- 
hended of Christ," he declared was this self-determin- 
ing force in his life. In this devotement there was 
nothing aimless, fortuitous, or fatalistic. It was free, 
self-conscious, wholly purposed, all-absorbing, self-deter- 
mining. This was simply a life of devoted realization 
of ideal character. 

In the same sense, but unconditioned, the perfect self- 
determination of God must be thought of as infinite 
intent, devoted self-determination. No account can be 
given of the perceived facts upon which this inquiry be- 
gan, namely, my own being and dependence, until I 
recognize that which is implied by them, namely, the 
source of all reality in action which is consciously and 
intentionally infinite perfection. Thought, feehng, and 
will may be explicated from it, or may be affirmed of it, 
but neither nor all of these terms adequately express its 
own generic unity. It is independent being devotedly 
realizing its own perfection. It is perfect devotement 
for the reasons that it is perfectly self-conscious, per- 
fectly purposed, and perfectly free. It is simple devote- 
ment for the reason that it is unconditioned. Being 
unconditioned, it is self-realizing. It is devoted achieve- 
ment. The perfect devotement of any person is his 
supreme devotement ; and hence the perfect devote- 
ment of an independent person is supreme devotement, 
the infinite experience of perfect being. 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 



51 



But this is to say that God's nature is devotement 
to perfection in himself? Precisely ! 

Perfect self-love is the nature of perfect action. — Self- 
love is not only the first right of being, but it is in finite 
persons the worthy, and in the infinite Person the 
supremely worthy devotement. Since in himself alone 
can unconditioned perfection be realized, supreme self- 
love in him is the infinite and infinitely worthy nature. 
In this there is the abiding realization of perfect egoism. 

If it be suggested that an independent person might 
determ.ine his own nature to be somewhat inferior to 
perfection it must be admitted that in such case he 
would be conscious of being imperfect. This conscious- 
ness of imperfect being would be imposed by conscious 
failure to reahze the infinite consciousness which would 
be the differentiation of thought and action ; and thought 
would condition and condemn his actual being. But 
this is a contradiction which would compel us to think 
of the independent as morally dependent, the uncon- 
ditioned as conditioned, the inseparable unit as divided. 
It is therefore clear that the notion of perfect action 
must be conceived as a being of consciously infinite 
perfection. 

Selfishness is a mode of self-determination which 
should be sharply discriminated. It is a form of devo- 
tion to self which is in detriment, or antagonism to 
another. This implies that the one is related to that 
other, and is thus conditioned by him. Selfishness, 
therefore, cannot be thought except as relative and con- 
ditioned, and consequently has no place in perfect self- 
determination. Since perfect action, realizing perfect 
being, is not and cannot be in derogation of any other, 
his devotion to perfection in himself is purely self-love ; 



C2 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

it is the supreme devotement of perfect egoism. We 
have no occasion to deny that infinite freedom can be 
thought as able to determine itself as a malevolent 
nature, but this would be to resign infinite freedom. 
Such a nature cannot be thought as realizing perfection 
of being, cannot be unconditioned. The nature of 
perfect action cannot be thought as other than de- 
votement to self-perfection, and this is independent 
self-love. 

Self-love is the nature of supreme self-deferminatiofi. 
When we consider self-love as devotion to perfection in 
one's self it appears plainly as the nature of supreme 
self-determination. In the perfect One it is perfectly, 
or infinitely, self-determining. In him it differs from 
self-love in man in that it is a self-established nature ; not 
instigated or influenced by any force or object external 
to himself, but is his self-determined nature. 

Self-love founds the infinite ideal. It does not copy, 
obey, or seek the infinite ideal as subject to an obli- 
gation thereto, but is that action the self-consciousness 
of which is the infinite ideal. In independent self- 
determination the infinite ideal is self-conscious in the 
infinite reality ; hence self-love, as the realization of the 
infinite, is the actualization of a perfect self, whose 
consciousness of himself is the infinite conception, or 
ideal. 

I can conceive an ideal self which I may labor to 
attain, actually. When I have actually realized this 
ideal it is no longer a conception which I seek to copy, 
but has become one with my self-consciousness or con- 
sciousness of myself. But when we think of the uncon- 
ditioned Person we necessarily think of an actual 
perfection who does not seek to attain, but is actually 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. e^ 

conscious of infinite perfection. Tliis consciousness of 
perfection, as in our thought we distinguish it from 
action, is the infinite ideal. 

For the purposes of our thinking, an ideal may be 
contemplated as such whether it be the self-conscious- 
ness of perfect action or an unrealized conception. In 
me the thought or ideal precedes the enacting, and it 
thereby conditions my action, but the perfect action is 
conscious of itself as perfect. This consciousness of 
its perfection is what we term the perfect thought in 
perfect action, the ideal in the real; but in fact both 
are real because one. In the highest generahzation the 
infinite conception, or ideal, is the self-consciousness of 
perfect action, the infinite Person's knowledge of him- 
self. The best definition, then, which we can give 
to self-love is this : It is that kind of action which in a 
perfect being actualizes^ in a finite being seeks to actualize , 
a perfect or ideal self. 

" The ideal " is a phrase which has especially two 
different appHcations. First, it is used to represent the 
unreal, that which is not actualized, or perhaps may 
sometimes be thought incapable of realization ; hence it 
is often applied to ideas, plans, or conceptions which are 
regarded as chimerical, Utopian. Secondly, it has the 
sense of the perfect when applied to thoughts, plans, or 
mental conceptions. We may have a conception of a 
perfect house. This we term an ideal house for the 
reason that it is only a conception or plan of what would 
be a perfect house were it built. But this ideal house 
is unrealized until built, when it may be termed a 
perfect house. Hence, we speak of God as perfect 
because he is actual perfection ; and of finite persons as 
seeking to realize an ideal self because their self-deter- 



24 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

mination is a process toward realizing a conception or 
ideal of their best selves. 

Self-love, by realizing a perfect egoism, founds per- 
fect altruism. Egoism which is determined by inde- 
pendent self-love must be thought unsusceptible to 
impairment. So thought, this ego has no object to 
attain, or attainable, greater than his own perfection. 
Secure in his perfect realization of being, he is able 
to lavish the excellence of being upon any and all 
objects which he may choose to posit, or create, 
that they may be the objective expression of such ex- 
cellence, may be the sharers of that excellence, sharers 
with him whose perfection cannot be impaired through 
any possible extension or multiplication of finite being. 
Thus indiminishable in egoistic perfection, he alone is 
in a position to realize the " self-forge tfulness " of 
perfect altruism. He has no occasion to protect his 
own self-assured perfection. Perfect egoism is the only 
possible condition to perfect altruism ; and hence, 
infinite self-love must be the only kind of action which 
is capable of altruistic perfection. 

Not only is his nature the occasion, but must be 
thought the perfect self-assurance which, if he choose to 
act objectively, must warrant unreserved unselfishness ; 
maintaining the highest egoistic self-consciousness 
throughout a perfect altruistic determination. 

A powerful, expert swimmer, in apparent self-abandon- 
ment plunges into the sea and rescues a drowning man. 
But what seems to inexpert observers as self-abandon- 
ment is, really, the fullest consciousness of his powers as 
a swimmer. It is this full consciousness of his powers 
which frees him from attention to himself and con- 
centrates his attention upon another. One less able 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. ee 

must divide his attention between the safety of himself 
and that of the other; but perfect abihty, perfectly 
devoted, is perfectly self-conscious in the self-forgetful- 
ness of altruistic devotion to the rescue of the drowning 
one. The highest self-consciousness of the swimmer is 
present in the highest self-consciousness of the rescuer. 
The swimmer and rescuer are one. Conscious perfection 
of either is in the perfect self-consciousness of the other. 
Thus perfection of being must be thought as a perfect 
egoism consciously capable of a perfect altruistic life. 
The independent devotement which realizes a perfect 
ego conditions in his own perfection a complete altruism. 
The highest self-consciousness of perfect being is 
present in the spirit of limitless altruism. A perfect 
egoism is requisite to perfect altruism ; and perfect 
altruistic freedom is requisite to perfect egoism ; and 
the perfect determination of self-love is requisite to both. 
And this is why self-love is the only thinkable nature of 
perfect action. 

The conception of perfect being, then, is that of 
the ego so secure and independent in the realization 
of perfect being as to be free to limitless altruistic 
devotement. 

Love and self-love are subjectively one. Self-love 
differs in no respect from love in the subjective nature or 
character of any being. Under either name it is the 
nature of supreme self-determination. Self-love is but a 
convenient term by which to confine the attention to 
love's action when considered subjectively. The action 
is the same, and love is its simplest and most exact 
designation. Love is termed self-love when it is de- 
voted to perfection in one's self, but since it may 
determine forms of manifestation objectively, the term 



56 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



" self-love " becomes inappropriate. The true definition 
of these terms is as follows : — 

Love is that action which is conscious of an ideal 
which, unconditioned, it realizes ; conditioned, seeks to 
reahze. 

Self-love is that action which is conscious of an ideal 
self which unconditioned, it realizes ; conditioned, seeks 
to realize. Thus it is seen they are subjectively the 
same, but the term " self" must be dropped when the 
action is viewed in altruistic freedom and spirit. And 
this is true of love whether in the infinite Person, who 
founds the infinite ideal in his perfect action, or in man 
by whom an ideal self is objectively contemplated. My 
self-love, if pure, is devoted to the reahzation of an ideal 
character in myself. If I perceive that ideal character 
realized in another person I love that person. My 
devotion to that ideal, my love of that character is the same 
whether realized in myself or in another, although in the 
one case it is termed self-love , and in the other simply 
love. My supreme devotion to that other person may 
work the highest self-determination in me. I realize my 
highest self-love in my love of that person ; and so 
long as my self-love derogates nothing from that other, 
it is pure love toward him. When it derogates or 
detracts from him it is neither love nor self-love, but 
selfishness. It is devotion to an actual self which 
rejects the ideal. 

Supreme devotement is love, whether it be that of an 
infinite or finite being. Whatever degree of devotement 
any being may have for himself or any other, whether 
respect, obedience, admiration, or love, his supreme 
devotement has no higher, fuller mode than love, de- 
votion to the realization of the perfect. It may thrill 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. cy 

the narrow conditions of an animal, may concentrate 
the self-determining powers of man, harmonize the as- 
pirations of seraphs, or be the nature of the infinite. 
Conditioned or unconditioned, it is the actualization 
of its consciousness of the perfect, simply and only 
love. 

Greater simplicity, perhaps, in exhibiting love as the 
nature of perfect action may be attained by a regres- 
sive statement. For example : — 

1. Love objectively manifested is beneficent altruism, 
benevolent, unselfish, or disinterested action. 

2. Infinite benevolence, or perfect altruism, can be 
realized only in perfect altruistic freedom. 

3. Perfect altruistic freedom can exist only in perfect 
egoism. 

4. Perfect egoism is realized only in perfect devote- 
ment to perfection of being. 

5. Independent devotement to perfection of being is 
the nature of perfect action. Hence : — 

Love, which, when objectively developed, is unselfish- 
ness, benevolence, beneficent altruism, is the nature of 
perfect action. 

Every step of this statement is so transparent, and the 
leading back of love, as unselfishness, to love as perfect 
action so self-evident, that a further discussion of them 
would be superfluous. 

The line of development which we have adopted, how- 
ever, is not the regressive, but the progressive method. 
This is, in brief, as follows : Perfect reality is perfect 
action; perfect action implies perfect self-conscious- 
ness ; the self-consciousness of perfect action is the 
infinite ideal; that kind of action which has in it an 
ideal which it realizes is love ; love's self-determination 



58 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



IS an egoism that has in it perfect altruistic freedom ; 
altruistic freedom in action which is devoted to the 
determination of being affords the spirit, or spontaneity, 
of perfect altruism, perfect unselfishness. 

When the nature of perfect action is thus developed 
objectively no one can hesitate to recognize it as love. 
Yet it is equally clear that such development of love 
could never originate except in the nature of an infinite 
being. It is that action which founds in itself a perfect 
which it devotedly realizes. It is not essentially related 
action, but is self-realizing ; and has occasion for objects 
of love only as they represent its own ideals, or may be 
instruments of their reahzation, for finite beings. Such 
occasion for objects of love is a need of only dependent 
beings. In the independent, love actualizes conscious 
self-perfection. 

Love is the grand involution of all qualities which 
must have their origin in independent action. We can 
say of love, as of God, it is good, true, holy, and beauti- 
ful, but none of these qualities are love. We can expli- 
cate from love, as we do from perfect action, thought, 
wish, and will, but neither nor all represent its absolute 
singleness of act. Poets and orators have thrilled the 
world with their marvellous sayings about love ; but 
when we would state what love is the difficulty is the 
same as that which is encountered in the effort to define 
the nature of the infinite, namely, the difficulty of repre- 
senting action to which the relation of subject to object 
is not essential. The good, or goodness, in the sense of 
beneficence, the metaphysical sense, means no more 
than a practical quality or result. We may say, " De- 
votion to the perfect achieves the highest good," but 
this does not define perfect action. It only states one 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. cq 

of its results or qualities ; that is to say, devotion to 
perfection is of a good quality, for the reason that one 
of its results is the highest good. Thus " the good," 
in this exact sense, can only express a quality or result 
of this action, but it is not the action. The moralist, 
in his generalization of positive qualities, often rests in 
what he terms the " Absolute Good." But absolute 
good, beside being an unintelHgible expression, is, and 
does no good except as it is founded as a quality or 
grouping of quahties of perfect action ; and then it is 
a quality or set of the qualities of love. Used in this 
moral or religious sense, " the good " simply stands for 
holiness, truth, and happiness, merely a group of quali- 
ties and results. In like manner, hohness, beauty, and 
truth, severally, are in one way or other incident to 
perfect action ; but none nor all of them give us the 
essential nature of this action. But love, which is not 
a property, quality, or result, is self-determining action 
which founds quahties and results. Another traces the 
beautiful to "its source in the absolute ideal," but the 
" absolute ideal," which can be beautiful only because 
of its pleasurableness, is an empty abstraction which 
cannot be pleasurable, except as the consciousness of 
perfect action ; and then it is love's consciousness of 
actualizing the perfect. Others make much of '' eternal 
principles," but these can be clearly discriminated only 
as properties of perfect action, which thoroughly knows 
itself; and this is but the self-consciousness of infinite 
love. As to the " infinite ideal," we have seen it is 
simply the perfect being's consciousness of himself. 
Separated, in our thinking, from his action, it is the 
infinite ideal ; it is that which men are groping after 
when they speak of " eternal principles." They fail to 



6o THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

grasp it, and therefore deny it, because they seek a 
theoretic system, instead of an ideal unit. Jesus said 
he bore witness unto the (ideal) truth, the divine con- 
sciousness ; while Pilate sceptically queried, " What is 
(theoretic) truth?" We recognize this consciousness 
of perfect being as the infinite self-consciousness of 
love. 

The true^ or absolute truth, is, as we have seen, the 
infinite ideal. We cannot distinguish it from the con- 
sciousness of perfect action ; and, as said before, this 
is identical with the self-consciousness of unconditioned 
love. Love has in it, not only practical perfection, the 
good, but also the infinite ideal, the true. 

An ideal is a conception of a unit from which ray out 
various qualities and implications which are implicit in 
this unit. The truths or principles thus implicit in the 
ideal are dependent upon it, and have their significance 
only as implications of the ideal. " Eternal principles " 
are true only because the infinite ideal is truth ; and 
are eternal only because perfect action is eternal. They 
bear no part in constructing the truth of that ideal, but 
are constructed as phases or affirmations of it. 

As an ideal is a unit, it comprehends in unity that 
which may be analyzed or studied as its contents. A 
complete and systematic knowledge of these contents 
would be a theory, or science, of that ideal. The in- 
finite ideal is truth in the absolute sense of a unit in 
which is all theoretic truth. None but an infinite 
thinker, we must presume, can understand a theory 
of the infinite ideal ; that is, have a theoretic knowledge 
of absolute truth. 

Relative truth arises with objective action on the part 
of God, in establishing dependent being and its incident 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 51 

relationship ; and then relative truth is right relation to, 
or harmony with the infinite ideal. One may ask, scep- 
tically, Might not truth have been constructed differently 
firom what it is ? Or, with that acute thinker, Mr. John 
Stuart Mill, he may suggest that truth, in some worlds, 
may be so different from what it is in this that " two 
and two may make five." Let such an one reflect that 
these suggestions are the emptiness of folly, unless there 
can be other than one infinite ideal ; unless there is other 
than one perfect consciousness of the perfect action. 

Holiness, or the holy, is the perfectness of intention 
in free action. Hence the intended, or purposed, per- 
fectness of perfect action, or the perfect being, is in- 
finite or perfect holiness. It is that quality of being 
which stands out to our thought when we contemplate 
the intentionally perfect self-determination of God. If 
his nature were necessitated it could have no moral 
quality. Or if it could be thought perfectly free, yet 
capricious, aimless, or fortuitous, it would be destitute 
of moral quality. But free self-determination is moral, 
and is perfectly righteous, or holy, because of its freely 
purposed perfection. 

We have already recognized purpose, or intent, in love, 
the devoted nature of perfect action, and hence may 
affirm the quality, perfect hoHness in the purposed per- 
fectness of love. When we affirm that God is holy, we 
mean to say that he is intentiofially perfect. Perfect 
personality, perfect egoism, is infinitely holy. Perfect 
action, being, egoism, personality, cannot be thought 
except as intentionally what it is, and wholly so. Hence, 
as we have seen before, perfect action is wholly ethical ; 
and its ethical quality is perfect holiness, since love is 
purely devoteraent to the perfect. 



52 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

Moral authority arises in purposed perfection. The 
holy is an authoritative sentiment which intentionally 
self-achieved perfectness imposes upon all other inten- 
tional action. Love, because of its perfection, is the 
criterion, standard, or authority which indicates what all 
other action ought to be. Figuratively it is the wheel 
to which all other action must be adjusted in order to 
achieve its highest being and welfare. Hence a universe 
of dependent persons must find the true significance of 
their being in conformity with love. If love act objec- 
tively in evolving a universe, for example, this action 
must impose the authoritative sentiment of holiness in 
all which it determines or conditions. Holiness, inten- 
tional perfectness, is imposed as the authority of an 
ideal which thus demands that it ought to be actuahzed. 
Though this objective action be subject to conditions, 
limitations, opposition, or possible defeat, yet if it pur- 
pose the best, that purpose is perfect, and therefore 
holy. Perfectness of intention, the holy, is, then, the 
authoritative sentiment which love founds in all which 
it determines, conditioned or unconditioned. 

Art aims to copy certain ideals in material forms, that 
is, seeks to copy mental conceptions. To the extent it 
succeeds in actually representing, on the canvas or in 
marble, for example, these mental structures termed 
"ideals," the artist's work is said to approximate perfec- 
tion. In the respects in which the material copy fails 
to fully represent the ideal, such material copy is defec- 
tive. The ideal, therefore, is the criterion or authority 
according to which action approves or disapproves itself. 

Thus, also, in conditioned self-determination the ac- 
tion recognizes the ideal as the sacred, which cannot be 
marred, however much the realizing action may fail to 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 



63 



interpret or copy it. This sacredness of the ideal in the 
intentions is one with the holy, that which is untarnish- 
able. The copy or model may be defective, marred, or 
destroyed, but the ideal is unimpaired. Hence the 
ideal personal nature or character is holy, though the 
enacted realization may be or may become unholy. But 
this authority of the ideal is not because of its imreality, 
but because of its conceded perfection. 

But ideal perfection cannot be authoritative unless it 
is realizable, or has been actually determined. That is 
to say, there can be no such reality as moral authority 
or obhgation in the universe without the ultimate oneness 
of perfect act and thought. I may picture to myself an 
ideal manhood to which I would gladly measure up in 
practice, but I can feel no obligation to measure up to 
it, or condemnation for neglect or failure to actualize it, 
if actual perfection exists nowhere, not even in God. 
And men would never dream of actualizing an ideal self 
but for the fact that its moral demand is pushed upon 
the conscience of each one of them by an actualized 
perfect who conditions their dependent being. This 
" moral imperative " arises in the structure of the human 
soul without giving any account of itself other than that it 
is the sentiment of the independent action which posits 
and maintains in men the conditions to intentional 
self-determination. 

But the Independent, whose action maintains the 
structure of dependent persons, cannot impose this 
moral imperative unless he himself is actually perfect. 
Actual perfection, or perfect action, alone places the 
independent Being in a position in which his nature 
imposes what ought to be the nature of all other action. 
If perfection could be nowhere determined, realized, en- 



64 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



acted, there could be no such thing as moral authority. 
Authority based upon anything else than actual perfec- 
tion is not moral. We err if we suppose that morality 
derives its authority, or imperative character, from its 
being " capable of universal utility." Universal utility is 
an assumption which can be verified only by accumu- 
lating universal data ; hence, without such data it is a 
gratuitous assumption. The moral imperative which is 
perceived in that best self, which each human being re- 
cognizes, is precedent to any assumption of utility. It 
is the absolute sentiment of perfect intention evincing in 
us the actual perfection of the Being on whom our being 
depends. No moral authority can be thought or felt 
except as the imperative sentiment of perfect action. It 
is the authoritative sentiment of perfection which the 
Independent actualizes in each dependent person. 

God, by actualizing conscious perfection in himself, 
realizes absolute moral consciousness. Absolutely free 
to be as he is, the unconditioned One, or else to deter- 
mine himself as falhng short of the infinite consciousness, 
beneath an infinite ideal, and thereby be conditioned 
and condemned by it, his perfect holiness appears in his 
purposely realizing conscious perfection. Hence love, 
his perfect action, which purposely actualizes his perfec- 
tion, establishes and maintains the authority of perfect 
holiness. 

To the extent to which I am determined by forces 
external to me I am necessitated; in what I am per- 
mitted to be I am conditioned ; in what I choose I am 
free. Entire necessity is found in my physical nature, 
the conditioned in my physical and intellectual, freedom 
in my moral nature. But the independent nature, freely 
determining conscious perfection, must be regarded as 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 



65 



in all respects a purely moral nature. He is subject to 
no necessity, no condition ; he is absolutely a law unto 
himself. In this conception of being we see that the 
unconditioned nature is a "wholly ethical," or moral 
nature ; that perfect action is purely ethical. The moral, 
the intellectual, and the aesthetic elements, which are 
seen separate and largely independent of each other in 
man, have their original oneness in the ethical nature of 
perfectly self-determined being. 

Moral authority has, as seen above, its original ground 
in God's actual perfection. This perfection is the ulti- 
mate moral authority to the universe, in both its crea- 
tive and created elements, independent and dependent. 
To the dependent it is superimposed, to the independent 
it is self-realized, and hence self-imposed. The infinite 
awe, termed the " holy," is the authoritative sentiment 
of the perfect. The moral imperative in God or man is 
the authority of a reahzed infinite, an actual perfect. A 
sentiment has no efficiency to compel obedience, but 
cannot be ignored or disobeyed without a resulting deg- 
radation to the being who rejects it, though the sentiment 
abides unimpaired. 

The holy is authoritative in that it imposes upon 
finite persons the obligation to be or do as in accordance 
with the perfect. Its authority is practical, since the 
person must experience defect or fault to the extent he 
neglects or rejects it. Its authority is wholly moral, for 
the reason that it does not compel attention or obedi- 
ence ; the person may attend or neglect, obey or dis- 
obey, at will. Its authority is independent in that it is 
the self-sustained sentiment of perfect being. It is the 
sentiment of God, the absolute imperative for all eternity. 
Hence we must recognize the absolute ground of moral 

S 



66 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

obligation in the actual perfect ; and since the sentiment 
of holiness arises in actual or actualizable perfectness, it 
is clear that free devotion to perfectness of intention, in 
God or man, is holy. 

Disobedience to the sentiment of the perfect, by 
choosing to determine his nature as beneath perfection, 
cannot be thought of the unconditioned person without 
thinking of him as having abandoned unconditioned 
being. For did he reject his conception of perfect being, 
he must become conscious not only of self-degradation, 
but also of a moral authority over him in the rejected 
conception, which, though abandoned, abides unimpaired 
as a reahzable ideal, abides as the criterion of what he 
ought to be, and thus conditions and condemns him. 
Therefore, to think of the unconditioned nature, we 
must think of unconditioned action as purposely enact- 
ing a perfection in which holiness is founded and duty 
anticipated. Thus love, the unconditioned ndluxQ, founds 
the holy as the quality of its intention. 

To say, What God ought to be he must be, ex- 
presses his holiness as imposed duty. But, to say, 
God is what an unconditioned person must be, implies 
absolute holiness as a quaHty of unconditioned being, a 
quahty of infinite love. In man's dependent nature is 
the consciousness of an ideal self, obedience to which is 
duty, but supreme devotement to which is a love 
which anticipates duty. 

The beautiful is that in perfectness which gives 
pleasure. Pleasure is derived from contemplating an 
ideal, but especially from the possession or achieving 
of that ideal in realization. Doubtless there is a satis- 
faction or appreciation derived in " the good," when it 
is attained in the practical realization of an ideal. But 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 67 

pleasure, rightly discriminated, results from such practi- 
cal realization; not because it is a good, but because of 
its perfectness. Perfectness, whether ideal or real, thus 
distinguished as pleasurable, is the beautiful. The 
fact that it is perfectness which gives pleasure, irrespec- 
tive of practical good, shows that the beautiful is a 
sentimental quality of the perfect ; and that love, the 
perfect nature of God, has in it " the perfection of 
beauty." 

That the beautiful arises as a quality, or property, of 
the perfect is further evinced in its close association 
with the holy, — so close, indeed, as to make it almost a 
question if it is not a sub-quality of the holy. As the 
origin of moral authority is found in the perfect, we find 
also in that authority the primary differentiation of 
pleasure and pain. Conscious self-degradation, which 
comes of ignoring or disobeying the perfect, has the ab- 
sence of a positive pleasure, and also, the presence of 
displeasure, — in human terms, pain or agony. The ne- 
cessary implication of intrinsic pain in the consciousness 
of self- degradation by rejection of the perfect, imphes 
the alternative that the realization of the perfect is the 
source of intrinsic pleasure. Hence we conclude that 
love, the nature of perfect action, has, consciously, in 
it both the authoritative sentiment of holiness and the 
pleasurable sentiment of beauty. It is impossible to 
think of God as perfect action without thinking that 
he experiences infinite rapture. 

The good, or goodness, though an expression often 
used in the sense of the perfect nature, falls short of 
expressing more than a quality of that nature. We may 
say, God is good ; but not, The good is God. The 
latter phrase expresses merely the empty abstraction of 



68 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

an impersonal deity. To say, The nature of God is 
good, is correct as to a single quality of his nature, but 
the good is not God, nor the nature of God. It is but 
one of the quahties which infinite love, his nature, 
founds. In like manner it may be said, he is holy, 
sublime, or all-wise, but these terms merely affirm cer- 
tain qualities or manifestations of his nature. It cannot 
be made clear to thought that goodness, holiness, truth, 
or beauty is God or his nature ; they are not, one or 
all, identical in thought with love, his self-determining 
action. Since the good is only a quality of action, it is 
not real, except when determined by some reality. As 
a quahty is nothing other than a property of some ac- 
tual being, it is a chimera unless it is realized in action. 

Chief good is the satisfactio7i of love. It is the high- 
est practical excellence, or worth, of being ; the highest 
practical satisfaction of the perfect nature to himself, 
and of finite beings to themselves, individually and as a 
whole. Being, alone, has positive good. Non-being, or 
non-existence, is nothing, contains no possibilities, is 
worthless. It cannot be thought good in any but a nega- 
tive sense ; in which it may be deemed a less evil than 
abused, self-degraded being. But it cannot be a positive 
good, although there may be modes of being which are so 
evil as to be worse then worthless. Any type or mode of 
being which has in it a satisfaction, interest, or possibihty 
better than non-being has the quality of goodness or the 
good. And any such being which realizes perfection 
of its type attains its chief good. Hence, chief good 
signifies the highest practical satisfaction or worth of 
true being ; and it is, therefore, correct to affirm of the 
perfect Being that he realizes infinite good. 

Since the possibility of good can be thought only 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. 6p 

of being, it subsists for dependent beings in two 
factors, namely, the conditions of such beings, and their 
self-determination in the use of these conditions. Hence, 
the good of being is achieved subjectively. 

For the independent being the possibilities for good 
are in but one factor, self-determination. Inasmuch 
as the unconditioned person must be thought as real- 
izing infinite being, his action must found the infinite 
good. The infinite good, then, is not identical with 
love, but is its satisfaction, a practical quaHty or prop- 
erty of absolute perfection. 

But all these qualities, the true, the holy, the beautiful, 
and the good, must each and all be but illusions unless 
they are enacted ; each and all must be merely conven- 
tional unless they are founded in independent action. 
If they are nowhere so realized it must remain an open 
question whether they are real or realizable. Hence, 
without action of a nature which realizes them as its 
qualities they must remain in the region of myth. Since 
a quality is nothing but a property of action, " the highest 
good" can mean nothing other than the highest prac- 
tical worth of being. *' Absolute truth," the conscious- 
ness of perfect being, the infinite ideal, cannot be essen- 
tial truth except as realized in perfect personality. We 
may say that relative truth is harmony with absolute 
truth, but both are only as our minds construe things 
unless absolute truth is realized in perfect action. So, 
also, the holy would be a superstition and beauty a dream 
unless founded in actual perfection. 

It is equally plain that unconditioned action cannot 
realize them, as obeying or seeking them as objects; 
for in that case such action would be conditioned by 
them, and hence could not be the unconditioned 



70 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



nature. Therefore, action which can realize these infi- 
nite quahties must be the action which founds them. 

But, inasmuch as the fact of my own dependent being 
pushes upon me the fact of the independent being, and 
the independent must be unconditioned, or perfect, being, 
and perfect being is perfect action, and perfect action is 
love, nothing can be more real than that perfect nature, 
love, whose practical satisfaction is the supreme good, 
that self-consciousness which is absolute truth, that 
authoritative sentiment which is the holy, or that fountain 
of pleasure, infinite beauty. 

Love is not to be classed with these quahties, but is 
that unconditioned action in which they are founded. 
Love is the only kind of action which we can think 
capable of unconditioned perfection ; hence, it is our 
only possible conception of the nature of an uncondi- 
tioned being. Any other kind of self-determining 
action falls into conditions ; love, alone, is all-sufiicient. 
It is independent, infinite. It is at once the achieve- 
ment and conception of the infinite reality, — perfect 
being, rejoicing in infinite truth, goodness, holiness, and 
beauty. Love, immutably self-assured, independently 
realizing perfect being, gives those qualities living reality. 

Moreover, it is not only unconditioned, but all-condi- 
tioning action. While it is the fulness of self-assured 
perfection it is adequate to conceive, realize, and sustain 
a perfect system of dependent being evermore. Only 
that which is perfect, independent self-determination can 
be the primary conditioning-power. And since love is 
the nature of the unconditioned it is the nature of the 
action which establishes original conditions. 

Love is the answer to the question raised in the 
former part of this chapter, " What kind of a being is 



BEING, AS CONCEIVED. yi 

he ? " It is that action which realizes perfect being. It 
affords the only and ample occasion for an objective 
creation, and renders to each dependent person a full 
account of the one imperious fact, — his own dependent, 
yet self-determining being. Reahty is action, action is 
Kfe, perfect action is love ! 



72 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



CHAPTER III. 

BEING; AS CONDITIONED. 
In Him we live and move and have our being. — Saint Paul. 

The implications of being have forced upon us the 
conception of an unconditioned person whose nature is 
love ; action which is a simple unit, at once the con- 
sciousness and realization of infinite, perfect being, — 
perfectly self-conscious in perfect self-determination. 
As it is self-conscious it is the supreme devotement, 
or self-determining act. 

We have been compelled, also, to recognize in this 
conception a life which is a perfect ego, capable of 
perfect altruism ; or, in other words, an egoism which, 
perfectly self-dependent and self-assured, is perfectly 
free to evince his changeless perfection by unreserved 
devotion to other beings. This unreserved devotion 
to others is what we mean by "perfect altruism," a 
manifestation, the highest and clearest, of independent 
egoism. It is a love which imphes such perfect con- 
sciousness of egoistic independence that it can manifest 
its ineffaceable perfection in all the abandon of an unre- 
served external devotion ; a manifestation which is an 
eternal beneficence and an infinite glory. 

Altruistic freedo7n, let us term this feature of infinite 
love. Failure to grasp this characteristic of perfect 
being, we suspect, has been a vitiating weakness in 
much of the philosophizing of the past. It has ren- 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. y, 

dered thinkers unable to think their way out from an 
unconditioned God to a conditioned universe which is 
objective to God. They have argued that, to human 
thought, a finite universe which is originated by an 
infinite or unconditioned being is a contradiction. 
Hence they have either denied the reaHty of an 
objective universe, which denial is pantheism, or they 
have failed to afiirm the reality of the unconditioned 
being, which is atheism, or, like the school of Sir 
William Hamilton, they have denied that God can be 
an object of human thought. 

We are not unaware that the difficult question of con- 
ditioned being is : Can the unconditioned be thought to 
erect objective being, without himself becoming condi- 
tioned? And, further. Becoming conditioned, can he 
be thought as abiding in unconditioned self-conscious- 
ness ; or must he pass into conditioned self-conscious- 
ness, and so subside as an unconditioned being? 

To these questions it were sufficient to answer : — 

1. He assumes these conditions by himself establish- 
ing them j and only an unconditioned being can be 
thought capable of thus assuming them. 

2. The same independent self-determination which 
can be thought without them must be self-conscious 
in the action which founds and sustains dependent 
being. The fact that he consciously establishes the 
conditions to objective being, and that this objective 
action is wholly determined by him keep before our 
thought his abiding consciousness of his own uncon- 
ditioned nature. 

It is certainly plain that human thought is condi- 
tioned, but how this argues that an unconditioned 
being cannot be thought by us as acting in relation 



^4 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

to an object has not been shown. That we are unable to 
discriminate that an absolutely self-determined being can 
conceive of relationship and act in relation to objects? 
without our losing the conception that he consciously 
and perfectly determines his own nature, is certainly an 
unwarranted surrender of reason. True, he must be 
thought as a subject who is related to an object, but he 
must be thought as the consciously independent subject 
whose nature is absolutely self-determined and who is 
independent in choosing to establish that object. If 
the conditioned nature of human consciousness were 
wholly the result of man's objective action we might 
be prone to think that the divine self-consciousness 
might, similarly, be the effect of his objective action. 
But there is not even this ground for our thinking that 
his objective action must efface the self-determined 
nature or consciousness of God. If a human being 
could by any means attain to unconditioned action 
or thought, it does not follow that his consciousness 
of that nature wherein he is conditioned and dependent 
would be lost. It would only show that he has deter- 
mined in himself a mode of knowing and acting dis- 
tinct from his relative and conditioned mode. Can we 
not clearly think of an independent being who, though 
consciously unconditioned in the determination of his 
own nature, may determine in himself a relative mode 
of knowing and acting without his being dependent 
upon it, or his nature conditioned by it. The only valid 
conclusion of this matter, arising from the limitations of 
human thought, is that we must think of God's nature as 
consciously independent and perfect, and also capable 
of conceiving and maintaining a consciousness of all 
possible dependent objects, relations, and conditions. 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. ^^ 

Moreover, much of the difficulty of this question 
results either from a confused or whimsical use of the 
terms "infinite," "unconditioned," "absolute," etc. Most 
of these thinkers fail perfectly to emancipate their thought 
of the infinite from the notion of quantity. Hence it 
is not surprising that they should aver that they cannot 
think of the infinite with the finite " superadded," for- 
sooth. But quantity is identical in thought with limita- 
tion, and hence a quantitative infinite is unthinkable and 
absurd. The infinite, in our thought, is perfectly free 
action ; hence it is action which is perfectly independ- 
ent, perfectly unconditioned and absolute, in relation 
to nothing in its self-determination. These terms can 
be strictly apphed to only perfect action and its quah- 
ties ; hence, only to a perfect person and his traits. 

But these terms do not, in strict use, apply to his 
objective action, as thought by us, but only to an ego 
whose action is perfectly self-determined in unrestricted 
freedom. And when we think of his determining a rela- 
tive mode of consciousness in himself, that conscious- 
ness is dependent upon him, not he upon it. Re- 
lation which may subsist between him and this relative 
mode of knowing and acting has no previously con- 
ditioning influence upon his determination of his nature, 
but simply expresses the form of his act in conditioning 
its existence. He is consciously independent, whether 
in omitting, estabhshing, or dismissing finite conceptions, 
conditions, and relations. They are incident to his 
determination of altruism ; and altruism is dependent 
upon egoistic perfection. If his altruistic determination 
could be thought as in some way at the expense of 
egoistic perfection, or an abridging of infinite per- 
fection in himself, there might be some ground for the 



^6 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

position taken in Hamilton's philosophy of the uncon- 
ditioned. But since love ' may exercise unrestrained 
benevolence because of its realizing self-perfection, there 
appears nothing in love's objective action to modify its 
unconditioned self-consciousness. All that Hamilton's 
school can validly affirm is that the determination of 
divine altruism, or benevolence, must be conditioned. 
This we affirm, in advance, by having said that, while 
altruistic freedom is in independent love, the deter- 
mination, realization, carrying out of altruism must be 
by objective action, and therefore must be thought as 
conditioned. But none can deny that love abides ego- 
istically perfect, even when it determines conditioned 
benevolence. 

An egoism which is perfect action must be thought 
unsusceptible to impairment ; and such egoism alone 
can have perfect altruistic freedom, which is the con- 
dition to perfect benevolence. An immutably perfect 
ego only can be thought as infinitely free, or as 
possessing perfect objective freedom. But the fact 
of an ego immutably perfect imphes in it perfect 
objective, or altruistic freedom. Hence perfection 
of being must be thought as a perfect egoistic life, 
perfectly free to an altruistic life. It is requisite to 
the notion of a perfect ego that there is nothing in him- 
self that is short of perfect freedom to act objectively, to 
freely choose what he will do, and in what method and 
according to what plan, if any, he will act. 

Our thought of the perfect freedom of God's self- 
determined nature is quite a different conception from 
that of his objective action ; the former is independent, 
absolute, the latter is relative and conditioned. Altruistic 
freedom is in the former. It is perfect freedom to act 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. jy 

objectively, or not, as the independent being may 
choose. If he choose to act objectively it does not 
change our thought of his independent nature, but 
simply requires us to think his objective action is 
relative and conditioned. Hence we must conclude 
that the question of harmonizing absolute being with 
his objective, relative action is a question of differing 
modes of consciousness in God, — the absolute con- 
sciousness and the relative consciousness ; thus carrying 
the question back into the independent nature, as a 
philosophic question, where it belongs. 

If we bear in mind that the aim of human philosophiz- 
ing cannot be to discover " how being is made," but 
that its true object is to form a conception which 
harmonizes and unifies the facts of being, we may 
get on with this question of absolute and relative modes 
of consciousness in God. It is not our task to show 
how they subsist, but to keep our thoughts clear of con- 
tradictions while we recognize the fact that they do 
subsist. 

The positions of all systems of thought, ancient and 
modern, which have failed here have taken for granted 
that such contradiction is unavoidable ; their position 
is substantially this, namely : The consciousness of re- 
lation, in God, must cancel his consciousness of absolute 
being. But this is a gratuitous assumption. They who 
hold to the doctrines of Nescience must make good 
this assumption before they can rationally advance their 
theories. 

Relative conscmts?iess, or consciousness of relation, is 
knowledge of that which is, or is known, in relation to 
other things or thoughts. The absolute is that which 
can be and be known of itself without the existence of 



78 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



any thing or thought other than itself. Nothing can 
reahze this latter definition except action which is per- 
fectly conscious of itself as perfectly self-determined 
reality. Hence, the absolute is the only consciously 
and perfectly self-determined unit. It is unnecessar}^ and 
absurd to think that this unit must forfeit or abate 
his consciousness of his own nature because of any 
conceptions which he may have of any or all other 
modes of being. 

Further, he must be thought less than perfect if he 
is not conscious of every possibility and implication of 
thought or act, or of every significance and minutia of 
a theory of his own being. This is the same as saying 
that he must be less than independent if he cannot be 
conscious of a perfect relative conception ; and he must 
be thought less than perfect action if he cannot be con- 
scious of such theory or conception without losing con- 
sciousness of himself as the self-determined unit. Then, 
what ground is there for saying that if he act objectively, 
project a universe, for example, in accordance with this 
conception, he can no longer be thought by us as ex- 
isting in all perfection, independent of all objective action 
condition, or relation? His objective action cannot 
be thought to exist without him, but he must be thought 
as perfect being, independent of it. In a word, he 
cannot be thought to exist in external activities except 
as dependent upon internal perfection. This internal, 
or egoistic, perfection is realized in absolute conscious- 
ness. All comes to this : He is absolutely self-deter- 
mined ; hence, in our thought, his nature abides 
consciously absolute and as independent of all external 
action which, however vast, he may put forth. 

God's determination of relative consciousness in him- 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 79 

self appears in his freedom to form a relative concep- 
tion, and thus consciously differentiate thought and 
thing. This differentiation, as we must see, is logically 
the true beginning. 

Is it clear to our reason that the absolute unit, the 
perfectly independent person, who in infinite freedom 
determines his own nature, is also free to form a con- 
ception of the relative ? If he cannot he has no mode 
of knowledge except self-consciousness, and this only 
as he acts it, and only in the one mode of action, the 
absolute. This is a notion of the self-determined One 
so cramped and stiff that he cannot even conceive of 
anything other than action, or of any mode of action 
other than absolute. This is infinite freedom of being 
which is under bonds to a finite necessity to think or do 
nothing. He is shut up to a necessity, — is neither inde- 
pendent nor infinite. 

The fallacy of this whole matter is in thinking of 
God's nature as being subject to modification by his 
objective thought or act, and thus dependent upon 
these in the same sense in which a dependent nature is 
gradually developed by interaction with external forces. 
But the only clear thought of his nature is that it is 
absolutely self-determined ; and this absolutely self-de- 
termined nature is self-conscious in positing any thought 
or action which he wholly determines, and which is 
wholly dependent upon him. It is a degrading an- 
thropomorphism to suppose that he cannot even con- 
ceive of aught less than himself without modifying his 
absolutely self-determined nature, as human thoughts 
and doings modify human character. But the one is 
independent being, the other is dependent becoming. 

Can the being who is a perfect person conceive of 



8o THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

any other than perfect action? Only an affirmative 
answer to this question is thinkable. Yet this answer 
decides the entire question of conditioned being. For, 
the moment we recognize that the being who is the 
unit of act and thought conceives that which is other 
than absolute self-determination, we thereby accept the 
fact that he is conscious of distinguishing this concep- 
tion from the action which may give it determination. 
If our thoughts are clear in recognizing this we can 
easily see that he is able to view thought and thing 
severally, as concept and content, ideal and reality, 
and related to each other as such. In a word, God, 
the self-conscious unit of thought and act, may be re- 
garded as also conscious of unrealized conceptions, and 
hence must be conscious of thought and act as dual, 
separate and correlated. 

And since in his perfect nature there is perfect 
altruistic freedom, he may be thought as conceiving a 
perfect altruistic scheme. Such a scheme is a concep- 
tion of an objective universe, and implies a universe of 
dependent persons who shall be objects of his action 
and beneficiaries of his altruism. Their personality, 
however, implies that, within conditions, they are self- 
determining ; and this is the same as to say that his 
conception of a universe is a scheme of thought which, 
in part, depends upon others to make it an actual thing. 

This differentiation of thought and its actualization is 
consciousness of form, as distinguished from the action 
which shall determine it ; and consciousness of their re- 
lation, each to the other. It implies consciousness of 
the relative, the limited, conditioned, — a relative con- 
sciousness. There is nothing in the nature of human 
reason to prevent our affirming the statement that God, 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 3i 

as the absolute unit, determines in himself the con- 
sciousness of distinction and relation between thought 
and thing. 

The determining the relative consciousness is the 
dependent result. Hence, the relative consciousness 
in God is determined by his perfect action, love. This 
is the initiative of relation and plurality ; logically, the 
true beginning, or founding of conditioned existence. 
It is also the origin of limitation, or quantity, and the 
starting-point of succession. 

This determination of a dependent mode of con- 
sciousness in God implies that he may, in his infinite 
freedom, determine in himself many distinct modes of 
consciousness, all consciously dependent; yet in his 
absolute nature he is self-conscious as the independent 
founder of all. 

The two modes of consciousness, the absolute and 
the relative, stand boldly out to our reason because of 
our unavoidable recognition of (i) the absolute nature 
of the independent self-determination of God, and 
(2) the determination of relative consciousness implied 
in his conception of relationship. The absolute self- 
consciousness is not conditioned by, or dependent upon, 
the relative, but abides in its distinct mode of being. 
The relative is posited by, and dependent upon the 
absolute. It is the child of the independent, '' the 
begotten of the Father ; " and so far as we can know 
or think, " the only begotten." 

In the order of God's relative consciousness is 
the going forth of his objective action. Hence, the crea- 
tion of an objective universe must be thought as the 
action of God, according to his relative consciousness, 
— the action of '' the only begotten." 

6 



82 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

We must think of the independent as at once uncon- 
ditioned and yet free to be ever in process of relative 
self-determination. The consciousness of this relative 
self-determination we have designated " the begotten," 
the formal expression, '' the Logos." Nor can we see 
that any violence to thought is committed by designat- 
ing this mode of conscious self-determination by the 
term "person." 

The relative consciousness in God is the nexus be- 
tween the infinite and the objective finite ; the bridge 
by which thought passes out from the infinite unit to the 
finite many. To find this passage has been the grand 
effort and failure of philosophy in ancient and modern 
times. No triangulation of regressive thought has ever 
been able to span this chasm. 

The relative consciousness in God is \ki^ primus of 
serial being, the first in the order of succession, the pri- 
mary consciousness of conditioned being. It is the real 
beginning, the " Word " that was " with God " and " was 
God." " The same was in the beginning with God. 
All things were made by him ; and without him was 
not anything made that was made." 

But we find this the logical beginning simply, but do 
not assign it a chronological date. We can assign no 
period when the Absolute refrained from objective action. 
But we must, nevertheless, think of his conception of 
relation and conditions as dependent, though eternal ; 
and therefore the relative consciousness must be thought 
as only logically subsequent to and dependent upon the 
absolute. 

Perhaps a more difiicult question from our point of 
view is : Can love be thought as perfect action without 
altruistic determination ; can love be complete without 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 



83 



practical benevolence? This question, however, is an- 
swered in a former chapter substantially as follows : 
Love, or supreme devotement to perfection, is complete 
whether as self-love it realize perfection independently 
or as benevolence, indirectly. The difficulty which 
attends the effort to see this is a certain anthropomor- 
phism which regards love as not complete unless it is 
lavished upon some object. Because men need an 
object to love, as an instrument through which to realize 
their ideal, and thus experience their highest self-deter- 
mination, purged of selfishness, we are apt to regard 
God as in need of a similar process by which to realize 
his own perfection. In man the same need of objects 
is experienced in every department of self-realization, 
physical, emotional, mental, and moral ; but the inde- 
pendent needs no indirect or related method by which 
to realize perfection in himself. Love is complete as 
devoted realization of the perfect, whether that realiza- 
tion be wrought directly or indirectly, with or without 
instrumentality. Perfection in God must be thought as 
directly self-determined, while man's perfection is deter- 
mined by his devotement to an object which represents 
this perfection. Infinite love realizes the infinite ideal 
in itself. If the independent being choose to form a 
conception of a perfect system of dependent being, that 
conception must be thought as dependent upon him 
and conditioned by him ; it is a conditioned concep- 
tion, while his nature is unconditioned. Perfectly self- 
determined being must be thought as perfecdy uncon- 
ditioned love ; and must be thought such before he can 
be thought capable of perfect altruism. If we but bear 
in mind that love is purely self-determining action we 
cannot fail to see that its highest mode is subjective, 



84 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



egoistic. And if we strictly adhere to this pure notion 
of love, the supreme devotement of perfect self-deter- 
mination, we shall have no difficulty in seeing that in an 
independent being it must reahze perfect self-determi- 
nation without need of objective instrumentality. 

Perfect self-determination must be thought absolute in 
knowledge and power, hence can actualize perfection 
directly, not conditioned by time, space, or means. It 
is not dependent upon objects of love as indirect means 
of reahzing perfection. Dependent persons, such as 
we are, must be led to apprehend our ideal self and 
actualize it in our highest self-determination by means 
of altruistic methods. We must " lose our lives that we 
may find them." All our love for others reacts to 
achieve our highest self-determination, and thus proves 
to be pure self-love purged of selfishness. And this 
pure self-love, which is the best possible for ourselves, is 
realized by our being the best possible for others. 
This exhibits the subjective oneness of love and self- 
love, — exhibits the unselfish freedom of a perfect self- 
love, pure altruism. 

But as the independent self-love of God is directly 
self-determined, it is independently the best for himself, 
and independently capable of being the best for a de- 
pendent universe. Hence it is clear that altruistic 
determination in an objective creation has nothing to 
do with developing love as the nature of God, — is not 
a necessity or a condition to God's egoistic perfection. 
But on the contrary, his perfect being, in its independ- 
ent altruistic freedom, is the condition and opportunity 
which account for the objective nature of the universe ; 
account for the universe as other than God. Love, the 
only thinkable nature of an unconditioned being, is in 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 85 

its perfect altruistic freedom the only thinkable condi- 
tion which is adequate to the projectment of objective 
being. Here we shake off the last shred of pantheistic 
philosophy, Hindoo, Greek, or German. 

Pantheism is but a confession of inability to think 
its way out from infinite to finite being ; and hence 
surrenders the solution of finite being and stultifies the 
individual self-consciousness of man. Whether as a 
theory that the universe is God, or God is the universe, 
or that God and the universe are necessary, co-existing 
phases of being, it cannot be held without contradic- 
tion. According to pantheism there is either no inde- 
pendent or no dependent being. Its teachers have 
failed to recognize unconditioned being as perfect ac- 
tion, failed to see that perfect action is perfectly devoted 
self-realization, failed to recognize this as infinite self- 
love, and failed to see that infinite self-love has infinite 
altruistic freedom, is infinite love, and implies the infinite 
freedom of perfect unselfishness. They have made 
their failures by regarding the universe as in some way 
necessitated j regarding the infinite as in some way im- 
pelled or driven to phenomenal methods to attain self- 
consciousness. They have dragged the infinite into 
finite conditions, and yet have accounted for nothing ; 
or, like Fichte, have concluded that finite being is but 
a dream, and human knowledge '^ but the dream of a 
dream." 

The first thing to account for is the fact of finite 
being, the individual self-perception of man ; not the 
reason why man or the universe exists, but the condi- 
tion upon which they can exist. We find this condition 
in the perfect altruistic freedom of independent self-love ; 
a freedom which neither abridges, impels, nor determines, 



86 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

but illustrates infinite self-love, the unconditioned na- 
ture of an ego whose perfection is not susceptible to 
impairment through endless altruistic determination. 
We find in this unconditioned love no necessity nor 
compulsion to altruistic benevolence. Compulsion can- 
cels benevolence. We find nothing in God's objective 
action that is a condition to his perfect self-determina- 
tion. We find, simply, an infinite love which needs no 
indirect methods by which to achieve perfect self-deter- 
mination, as man needs, but which, in its direct, un- 
related, independent realization of perfect being, is 
perfection for himself; and is hence capable of perfect 
beneficence to others ; and this love, in its egoistic 
independence, is identical with perfect self-love, the 
self-sustained egoism which is adequate to endless 
altruism. This is perfect altruistic freedom, as imphed 
in infinite egoistic love. 

We have said that a perfect, that is, a perfectly free, 
altruism is, to our thought the highest exponent of 
egoistic perfection. But this does not imply that ego- 
istic perfection is determined by means of it; but it 
does imply that egoistic perfection is self sufficient, self- 
secure, so as to be infinitely free to determine love's 
altruistic benediction, without subjective resei-ve, for- 
ever. Thus love appears to our thought as determining 
a higher and a lower life, — the higher life of independent 
being, the lower life of finite self-determination in rela- 
tion with dependent being. The higher is the perfec- 
tion of unconditioned, the lower is the perfection of 
conditioned consciousness. 

Then let it be steadily held in view that the grand 
demand upon our system is to account for our personal 
existence ; and that this fact is accounted for in finding 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 



87 



in independent self-love the freedom to create or not 
create ; and in either case to be self-determined perfec- 
tion in himself. The perceived fact of our dependent 
existence evinces that he chooses to create ; his freedom 
so to choose offers a full account of our existence, — a 
full account of " Being, as Conditioned." 

The reason why he chooses to create dependent 
beings is not concerned in this question, or in any way 
needed that we may see the co-existence of conditioned 
with unconditioned action in God, or the co-existence 
of conditioned beings with the unconditioned One. 
" The reason why " concerns the intention, or meaning, 
of our existence, but not the fact. Doubtless pantheis- 
tic theories are prompted from supposing that dependent 
being must be accounted for by showing some necessity 
for it, and hence place that necessity in a necessitated 
unit, which may be termed either God or universe, and 
of which dependent beings are but temporary phenom- 
ena. Thus self-conscious, dependent being, which is 
the grand problem to be solved, is not solved, but 
ignored. 

Now that we see, in self-love's perfect self-determina- 
tion, the freedom of the unconditioned ego to determine 
an objective system of being in harmony with that love, 
we might offer the implied reason why he chooses so 
to do, but this we defer to the discussion of "The 
Implications of Love," Part Second. 

The Altruistic Spirit. — It is impossible for us to think 
of that Person who is immutably perfect — perfect for the 
infinite good and pleasure of his own being and perfect 
to afford the highest good of other possible beings — 
without recognizing in him the spontaneity, or spirit, 
of infinite benevolence ; a spirit prompting to his 



88 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

objective determination of conditions upon which may 
arise any and all forms of being that may realize a 
beneficent existence. 

But to be more explicit : We have seen that love, 
his nature, is supreme devotement to perfection of 
being. Take this with its realization of God's uncon- 
ditioned egoism, in which is perfect freedom to altruistic 
determination, and the fact stands out to our view that 
his nature, love, is devotement to all being in which it 
may realize an ideal. Hence, we must recognize a 
tendency in love to action which can realize an ideal 
objective hfe, — indeed an objective life which may com- 
prehend all ideals which may contribute to the realiza- 
tion of perfect objectiv^e being. 

The term " spirit," is used in at least two different 
senses : first, it means the self-determining ego, in 
which the consciousness of personality resides. The 
term has this sense in the sentence, -' God is a spirit." 
Secondly, the term " spirit" represents the synthetic senti- 
ment, general disposition or tendency of the intention 
and qualities which are established by self-determination. 
This is the general out-flow, or spo7itaneity, in which 
every trait of the nature and character is represented, 
not in severalty, but as a whole. 

Since love is devotion to perfection of being, and ex- 
periences the practical good of love-determined being, 
and enjoys perfect altruistic freedom, it has the general 
sentiment of devotion to the realization of all possible 
forms of love-determinable being. Take the practical 
good which God knows there is in the satisfaction of 
love, and the practical good to other beings which love 
may attain in the realization of the several ideals which 
may be comprehended in the reahzation of an ideal ob- 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 



89 



jective life^ as a whole, and we have the be7ievolent ele- 
ment in love's altruistic spontaneity. This " altruistic 
spontaneity " is an altruistic spirit in the second above 
described sense of that term " spirit." 

But it is only a spojitajteity^ not a determination, unless 
it actually prompts to objective action. If it so prompt 
it is then a self-conscious determination, self-co?isciously 
pro7npting^ or tirging ; an objectively directed energy ; 
" the altruistic spirit " in the first sense as above 
described. 

If, according to the prompting of this spirit, God ac- 
tually creates dependent objects, then, we must think, 
the altruistic spirit is definitely self conscious in all his 
objective action, — self-conscious in love, prompting and 
urging its entire evolution. 

This prompting to objective being has in it, of course, 
love's devotion to perfection, love's enthusiasm for ac- 
tualizing the ideal. Hence it is the prompting of i?jten- 
tional perfection, albeit of conditioned perfection. It is 
the intent to realize a perfect objective life. And since 
the holy is perfect intention, or intended perfectness, 
its prompting is wholly to perfectness in all objective 
action. Although the working out of love's ideal objec- 
tive life may involve a vast amount of weakness, defeat, 
delay, or opposition to its perfect determination, the 
spirit which prompts to it must be thought true to the 
ideal, in its intent, throughout all the vicissitudes of the 
realizing process. Hence the altruistic spirit is, dis- 
tinctively, a holy spirit. Although the objective, condi- 
tioned system of being may involve much of imperfection 
before its perfection is attained, the spirit which urges 
it is holy so long as it does not demand a departure 
from righteousness or the infliction of essential ill upon 



go THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

any being in order to condition the ultimate success. 
We have seen in the preceding chapter that intending, 
or purposing, the perfect is the holy in God ; and in- 
tending a best or true self is holiness in a finite person ; 
hence we can readily see that the spirit which prompts 
to the conditioned perfection of God's objective action 
is the spirit of holiness, or the '^ Holy Spirit.'' 

We discern, then, in our discrimination of the altru- 
istic spirit of love, that its prompting will be an authorita- 
tive sentiment at every point in conditioned being where 
self-determining intention shall arise, — an authoritative 
sentiment, urging to intentional devotion to the realiza- 
tion of the ideal, the true hfe. This sentiment of holy 
intention must abide as a moral condition to every in- 
tention, divine or human, which bears upon the deter- 
mination of personal character or the attainment of 
essential good. 

Whether, then, we think of God's objective action as 
creating and arranging primal chaos, or adjusting the 
conditions of the nicest shades of human responsibil- 
ity, or witnessing his acceptance of human faith, there 
must be thought the self-determined presence of the 
altruistic spirit, urging holy intention in all conditioned 
being. 

The inference to which this matter comes is that we 
identify the " moral imperative " in man, termed the 
authority of conscience, with the authoritative sentiment 
of the altruistic or holy spirit, which, in God's infinite 
nature prompts to objective holiness and benevolence, 
and is self-evident as moral authority which conditions 
man's conscious intentions. Since it does not determine 
formal thought or action, in man or the objective uni- 
verse, but merely imposes a moral condition upon inten- 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. ^j 

tions, it is purely moral in its prompting, its condemna- 
tion, or its approval. 

The Detennination of Altruism is necessary to give 
it objective reality. Without such determination it must 
be thought as simply comprehending an infinite altruistic 
fireedom and the altruistic spirit. It is nothing more 
than the occasion for objective action unless God shall 
choose to realize it in objective fact. Thus there is in- 
volved in love the original possibility of objective reaKty. 
And, upon further consideration, we may see that it im- 
plies motive to the creation of real objects. But since 
it is clear that we need not think the nature of perfectly 
self-determined being is changed or affected by his con- 
ceiving or founding objects, we must regard God as at 
once unconditioned and yet free to be ever in process 
of relative self-determination. 

Pantheism cannot realize altruism. A universe which 
is not objective to the power that projects it is not a 
universe, but an ego ; does not determine objective 
realities. Love, which realizes perfect being and hence 
can afford unrestrained altruistic action, implies in that 
action objects which shall be consciously other than the 
unconditioned being, — objects toward which, also, the 
Unconditioned shall realize that he establishes, or posits, 
them as external to himself This is his conditioning of 
externality. 

A point in God's action where he erects conditions 
from which may arise a spontaneous self-conscious act, 
other than God's act, is a realization of externality ; 
and is action which must be thought as objective to 
God. That self-conscious external action gives indi- 
vidual unity to the group of conditions upon which it 
has arisen. This actor, or agent, that shall thus act 



02 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

originally — that is, for himself — consciously choosing 
to do this or that, or in any way originating change in 
and of himself, becomes thereby conscious of himself 
as a being other than God; and God is thereupon 
conscious of a person external to himself. 

This new, self-conscious being may not be definitely 
conscious of the conditioning action which constitutes 
his nature, nor apprehend how his own power to act 
arises ; but he is conscious of himself in acting for him- 
self This definite self-conscious agent, who, though 
dependent, is conscious of selfhood as an individual 
actor, self determining within his conditions, is a real 
object, external to God, which meets the demand of 
divine altruism. In him the divine love realizes actual 
altruism. Love's benevolence finds a real object, and 
acting in relation to him, is consciously beneficent. It 
is only a universe of such self-conscious, though de- 
pendent beings, that can be such a universe as the free 
altruism of God implies. 

Although we might suppose the existence in the 
mind of God of a concept of a perfect universe, this 
concept could not be the determination of altruism 
until such concept became an objective reality; until 
a person or persons, definitely other than himself, were 
established. This otherness must consist in a definite, 
though dependent ego, — a real being who is a self con- 
scious actor. He may be conscious of action which is 
not his own, and yet conscious of his own self-origi- 
nated action ; and also that it is the one same con- 
sciousness which distinguishes the action which is 
self-originated from that which is not his own. I am 
conscious of charming sensations of sight and sound 
which arise in me by no choice or act which I exert ; 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 



93 



but I can avoid their charm by choosing to divert my 
attention from them, and thus, by my own act, con- 
sciously ignore them. Not only do I distinguish self- 
originated action from posited action within me, but I 
abide the same individual, perceiving and purposing, 
and remembering past perceptions and purposes. This 
finite ego, my self-perceived being, is conditioned by 
that class of action termed above "not my own." It 
is action which is established by a power other than 
myself. It is my nature ; but in the action which I 
originate I am selt-conscious and free, appropriating 
and modifying my nature, building upon it or of it my 
self-determined personality. 

It is of no consequence to ask how original action 
arises spontaneously upon certain posited conditions, or 
passes from spontaneous into self- determining action ; 
for that is but to ask how being comes to be, — a ques- 
tion which is impenetrable to human thought, and 
besides has no weight as against the perceived facts of 
spontaneous action all around us, and self-determination 
within us, arising upon posited conditions. 

God's objective action is co7iditioned action ; con- 
ditioned by him as the subject who acts toward an 
object, and also conditioned by the object of his action, 
thus estabhshing the relation between subject and ob- 
ject. His relative consciousness founds succession, and 
is, logically, the beginning point of successive events. 
Hence love, when devoted to others, can be realized 
as conditioned. Until altruism is so realized it can be 
thought only as the altruistic spirit. Only by objective 
action can it find determination. Without this it is 
benevolence that is not beneficent. For an objective 
universe there is ample scope in the altruistic freedom 



04 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

of love ; but its determination must always imply condi- 
tioned action. God must be conscious of acting under 
conditions when he acts with reference to a proposed 
object, and hence must be thought as acting accord- 
ing to his self-determined relative consciousness. 

It is clear to our thought, then, that love, which is 
the divine nature, and is perfectly self-consciousness as 
infinite egoism, expresses itself externally in restless, 
boundless activity ; and this objective activity, with all 
its objects and conditions, is the universe. 

The endless process of the universe is implied in 
its existence. All theories which suppose a cyclical 
return of the relative to the absolute, of the finite to 
the infinite, in the sense of suspension or completed 
end of finite being as a whole, imply a limit or ex- 
haustion of the infinite, beyond which he cannot con- 
dition dependent being. Of course, such implied 
hmitation is contradictory and absurd. But because 
no such exhaustion can be thought, we must think of 
conditioned being, as a whole, as an endless develop- 
ment. 

We positively affirm God's objective action upon the 
ground of individual human consciousness alone. For 
aught we can positively know, all other world-phenomena 
may be part of his subjective action. In forming such 
a conception of the independent as our thought requires 
we do not find anything which we can positively know 
as external to God except ourselves, whom we perceive 
as individual, conscious power. By inference from our 
own conscious unity we may and do conclude that all 
objects which manifest themselves after our manner, or 
order, in any degree, — things, men, or animals, — are, like 
ourselves, individual beings. Further, we think of the 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 



95 



material world as being a part of God's objective action 
because we observe it as conditioned. Possibly there 
is in us an instinctive conviction that our perception of 
external objects is more real and valid than any exist- 
ing philosophy of perception has definitely established. 
Certainly the last word has not been said on that sub- 
ject. But in the knowledge of our own definite unity 
and free action, we have firmly fixed the fact of objec- 
tive being, objective to God. This fact prevents our 
thought from finding rest in any form of pantheism. 

How much of what we term the universe is God's 
objective action, it is impossible for us to decide. Where 
the line should be drawn that distinguishes the divine 
ego from the universe, it is not ours now to know, for 
the reason that we have direct perception of no other 
beings but ourselves. It is true that by sense-percep- 
tion we perceive the earth, the heavens, clouds, conti- 
nents and oceans ; the seasons with their snows and 
verdure, their flowers and fruits ; the animals, great and 
small ; the sounds and songs of nature ; the human 
family with all its busy activities, its signs of joy, suf- 
fering, ambition, disappointment, achievement, and 
quenchless longing. But it is by inference we decide 
that these are real objects ; and that inference is based 
upon our individual consciousness. 

When I observe objects which reveal to my expe- 
rience and reason that they are self-determining, like my- 
self, I am convinced they are persons. Upon such 
conviction we treat each other as free, responsible 
beings. Hence the responsible qualities which dis- 
tinguish persons, maintain relationship through the whole 
family of man, and develop all forms of government and 
law. Though this reasoning is valid in all practical 



96 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



affairs, yet in deciding what may be directly known we 
must be guided by the facts of which we are directly 
conscious. Confined to these we can at least affirm 
our individual being, dependence, and free action ; in a 
word, our individual personality. 

This selfhood is the first fact which we directly know 
as objective, or external to God. We know it as objec- 
tive to God because of our consciousness of perceiving, 
choosing, purposing, willing. 

" Natural law " can be thought as only the observed 
order in which God acts. It can give us no insight as 
to where that action in the world passes from subject 
to object, or whether it is subjective or totally objective. 
Natural law is simply a recognition that there is about us 
an actor, not ourselves, who observes a regular order in 
his action, observes harmony everywhere. Relative order 
is relative truth ; and love is the content which determines 
the form of relative truth. This form of truth, or order, 
is not imposed upon, or accepted by love ; nor is it made 
in an arbitrary sense which implies it might have been 
made differently. But it is a conception which love de- 
termines as its formal expression. Let it be steadily borne 
in mind that the nature of perfect being is perfect action, 
and perfect action is love ; and that such a being, when 
acting with reference to an object, acts in the relation of 
subject to object ; and hence the relations established by 
his objective action must be the forms of love's objective 
expression. Relations are what they are, and relative 
truth is what it is, because love is love. 

The harfnony of relative beiiig within itself, and its 
harmony with the absolute being, has its ground in the 
initial harmony of absolute and relative consciousness in 
God. Harmony of relations imply the possible harmony 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. gy 

of beings who exist in relation to each other. Rela- 
tions are harmonious as they accord with the relative 
consciousness of God ; and their absolute basis of har- 
mony is in the compatibility of his relative with his abso- 
lute consciousness. This must be thought for the rea- 
son that love is the one determining action in God's 
egoistic and altruistic determination. 

Thus love appears as the nature of that ultimate unit 
in which alone thought can find the basis of an har- 
monious and possibly successful universe. It is that 
action in the universe which is self-sustaining and self- 
harmonizing in all forms, complexities, and extensions, 
forever. It is this alone which can assure the philoso- 
phers' claim that " truth is a unit," or justify the 
saying that " there is in history a force, not our- 
selves, which makes for righteousness," or inspire the 
poet to sing : — 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again ; 
The eternal years of God are hers." 

Disharmony may arise in conditioned being only at 
the point where dependent beings are free to originate 
action. Material things, which never break the harmony 
of natural order, must be referred to the action of God. 
All that we can affirm of them is that they must be 
thought by us as points or groups of points at which his 
action is perceptible to us. Hence, in all contact with 
the world and our own nature, our conscious action 
must be thought as in interaction with him. Around 
and in us at every point are his conscious activities, 
surrounding and filling us with ceaseless changes, yet 
transcending all change with immanent harmony. Our 
action must interact with him or react against him ; 

7 



98 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



acting upon his action, and thus, as we purpose, pervert- 
ing it or building into it. To the extent that our action 
intimately articulates with his we determine our progress 
and realize his concept, or ideal, of our being. Failure 
to so interact must be to antagonize our conditions, 
pervert our nature and defeat his plan in us. Thus we 
are free in this conditioned self-determination. 

Inferior beings may exist solely for the purpose of con- 
ditioning the development of superior classes of being, as 
vegetables afford conditions for the development of ani- 
mals, and certain classes of animals condition the develop- 
ment of others ; and any or all of these, again, furnish 
conditions for the life and development of persons. All 
the vast scheme of sensitive nature may thus be concerned 
in conditioning the maturing splendors of the personal 
universe ; and wholly, too, in accord with love, provided 
the degree of good realized by these inferior creatures 
compensates them for the sufferings incident to their 
being. Our position that the universe is the product 
of love imphes this compensation. Besides, there is 
nothing in our knowledge of the lower animals to show 
that they do not derive this compensation. But there is 
much to show that they do ; which might here be pro- 
duced if it pertained to our line of inquiry. The 
"slaughter-house" argument of atheists, in which they 
dwell with so much sentiment upon the feeding of man 
upon animals and animals upon each other, has no 
significance until this question of compensations is set- 
tled in their favor. That the lower animals suffer 
agonies in the process of their contributing to the life of 
others we do not question, but that the pleasures of 
their being far outweigh these agonies is not only alto- 
gether probable as fact, but is a necessary inference from 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. qq 

love's demands. And love's demands are affirmed upon 
higher and firmer grounds than any cosmic argument can 
afford. The main factors which dominate all the ques- 
tions of being, as conditioned, are those which establish 
it as a fact ; namely, the nature of God and the deter- 
mination of finite beings. 

Conditioning and Determining make up the whole of 
related action, — the grand summary of " Being, as 
Conditioned." They are the two functions of all action 
in which the sovereignty of God and the personal freedom 
of dependent beings are conserved and harmonized. 
Failure to observe this discrimination has been at the 
bottom of the theological worry of centuries over the 
supposed inconsistency of the " sovereignty of God " 
and the " freedom of the human will." But bearing in 
mind that objective action is necessarily and always 
conditioned, and that the evolution of divine love 
is the conditioning process to the development of a 
self-determining of a finite, personal universe, there is no 
need to suppose that God must in any instance over- 
ride the personal freedom of dependent beings in order 
to be thought "almighty," or able to achieve the 
evolution of love. Moreover, the divine altruism, seek- 
ing the highest perfection of dependent beings, must 
find its highest determination in the largest freedom 
possible to their dependent nature. Divine interference 
with their personal self-determination would be the 
defeat of altruism and a confession of its failure to 
achieve a successful universe. 

The true scope of divine sovereignty and its glorious 
success are in the affording conditions upon which the 
perfection of a personal universe shall be self-determined. 
The affording these conditions is the evolution of 



lOo THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

divine love ; a grander sweep of divine power than the 
compulsion or annihilation of a universe. The deter- 
mination of their own destiny, in the midst of these con- 
ditions, is the sphere, the responsibility, and the glory of 
finite persons. 

These determinations may, indeed, modify, distort, 
pervert the conditions which love provides ; hence its 
infinite altruistic freedom must afford further and ampler 
conditions upon which such perversions may be sur- 
vived and corrected. Thus, while he posits conditions 
which finite persons may modify, God must find him- 
self unfavorably conditioned in his effort to realize his 
altruistic purpose. But these unfavorable conditions 
but afford occasion for surmounting them ; not by over- 
riding the personal freedom of finite persons, but by 
evolving further and wider conditions upon which they 
may remedy past abuses. 

Such has been the history of our planet and race. 
Such is the only view, clear to thought, which accounts 
for the long continuance of mixed good and ill. Such 
the suggestion of " the depth of the riches both of 
the wisdom and the knowledge of God." 

To sum up : From the two facts, our being and 
dependence, we have endeavored to trace their im- 
plications. In our progress we have been compelled to 
recognize : — 

1. An independent, perfectly self-determined ego, or 
infinite Person. 

2. That he is perfect action, the unit of "thought 
and thing," the conscious actualization of infinite 
perfection. 

3. That love, and love alone, is the nature of that 
action. 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. jqi 

4. That love, realizing the infinite, is the grand 
involution of all being ; hence : — 

5. Love involves absolute truth, as the infinite ideal, 
realizes the supreme good, the holy and intrinsic 
beauty. 

6. That in love is perfect altruistic freedom ; hence 
it is capable of perpetual objective beneficence ; hence 
is free to condition the rise of an objective universe. 

7. An objective universe is one composed of beings 
who are self-determining within conditions ; which im- 
plies that the Creator forms a conception of their being, 
leaving the actuahzation of such conception to condi- 
ioned beings themselves. 

8. This conception in the divine mind implies the 
differentiation or dividing of thought and thing, of ideal 
and its realization, and their relations to each other; 
hence it evinces consciousness in God of conditions 
and relations, the relative consciousness, the initial of 
successive being, the formal, the logical discrimination of 
being, — " the Word," " the Begotten of the Father." 

9. In the order of the " relative consciousness " must 
be the putting forth of all God's objective activities, all 
evolution. Hence " the Creator, " is God acting ac- 
cording to his conception of logical relations ; hence 
his logical consciousness, or "begotten " consciousness, 
" the Son." 

10. In infinite love there is not only altruistic 
freedom, but the '' altruistic spirit," which is a self- 
conscious prompting, or urgency, in the infinite ego ; a 
definitely self-determined force, or mode of conscious- 
ness which prompts to the determination of altruistic 
being. And since it is a prompting to the realization of 
an ideal, or perfect altruistic life, it discriminates and 



I02 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

determines the holy intent of altruism, whatever may be 
the vicissitudes, mishaps, abuses, or woes attending 
its conditioned determination. Hence he is the 
Holy Spirit. 

11. The determination, or actualization, of altruism is 
the evolution of love, the realization of an objective, or 
personal universe. 

12. The process of love's evolution determines the 
conditions upon which dependent beings spontane- 
ously arise and gradually realize self-determination and 
consequent personal identity, as dependent, or condi- 
tioned, persons. The entire universe is conditioned in 
love ; although the relation of many classes of beings 
may be but to condition the determination of other 
classes. 

13. Dependent persons are beings who are con- 
sciously free in their intentions and in the use which 
they make of all their conditions, hence within their 
conditions are self-determining. 

14. Capable of intentional self-determination, they are 
capable of determining themselves as either in harmony 
or disharmony with their conditions, able to use or abuse 
them, and thus realize the intention of divine altruism, 
or pervert its auspices. 

15. Freedom of intention in human beings is con- 
ditioned by a moral authority termed " conscience," or 
"the moral law," or "moral imperative," which, though 
it may be neglected, cannot be corrupted as can other 
conditions. It is an independent sentiment, which 
imposes the obligation of moral purity upon human 
intentions wherein those intentions pertain to self-deter- 
mination, and imposes altruistic benevolence wherein 
our intentions pertain to other beings. 



BEING, AS CONDITIONED. 103 

It is independent in that it cannot be corrupted or 
modified. It is authoritative in that it imposes the au- 
thority of the ideal upon the actual. It is wholly moral 
in that it does not compel obedience. It is practical in 
that personal innocence, if obeyed, guilt if disobeyed, 
result from its moral behest. It is holy in that it 
prompts to perfect intention. It is altruistic in that it 
prompts to benevolence toward others. It is identical 
with the altruistic spirit in God, in that it prompts to 
holiness and benevolence of intention in all self-deter- 
mining and objective action. It is the " holy spirit," in 
that harmony with its prompting implies the determi- 
nation of perfect altruism, the perfection of the personal 
universe. 

16. Thus the independent, altruistic spirit, which 
prompts to practical altruism in a perfect universe, main- 
tains the conditions to harmony of intention, leading to 
harmonious self-determination in all persons by disclosing 
the intention with which their being is posited. 

17. The universe is a system of conditioning and de- 
termining action, — action of the Creator and dependent 
beings in relation to each other, objectively conditioning 
each other, — dependent persons subjectively determi- 
ning themselves upon these conditions. Conditioning 
and determining construct objective being, and hence 
make up the warp and woof of human hfe, history, and 
destiny. 

18. The interaction of the Creator with dependent 
beings, and their interaction with him and each other, is 
^' Being as Conditioned." 

19. Free self-determining being, or personality, per- 
sonally external to God, yet interacting with his action 
in their nature and environment, is a full account of 



I04 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

all the facts of human consciousness^ experience, and 
history. 

20. The grand fact revealed to thought in these 
"Implications of Being" is the evolution of love. 
The grand significance of man is his position as an 
exponent and beneficiary of that evolution. 

With this view of Being, we confidently proceed to 
the "Second Part" of our task. 



pavt ^econti. 



IMPLICATIONS OF LOVE. 



There is a love unstained by selfishness, 
Th' outpouring tide of self-abandonment, 
That loves to love ; and deems its preciousness 
Repaid in loving, though no sentiment 
Of love returned reward its sacrament ; 
Nor stays to question what the loved one will, 
But hymns its overture with blessings immanent; 
Rapt and sublimed by love's exalting thrill, 
Loves on, through frown or smile, divine, immortal still. 

— Fragment. 



IMPLICATIONS OF LOVE. 



CHAPTER I. 



CREATION. 



The ideal, stable type of ever-moving progress. 

— Victor Hugo. 

In outlining the " Implications of Being," we have 
proceeded from the perceived facts, being and depend- 
ence, to the recognition of love as the nature of that 
perfect action which is the independent ego. In this 
perfect ego we have found perfect altruistic freedom for 
objective action. Hence we have clear scope in which 
to trace the " Implications of Love " in its evolution. 
Such evolution brings us to consider the natural world 
as a creation, and God in the capacity of his conditioned 
consciousness as Creator. 

That our thoughts at this point may be entirely clear 
to the reader, we use the term " creation,^' in order 
that we may not seem to entertain the notion that the 
Creator wrought the universe from supposed pre-existing 
material. Nor do we take upon us to affirm anything 
of matter, substance, or reality, further than to say it is 
action and what action unavoidably implies. Without 
possibility of doubt or gainsaying, action is real. This 
we can and must affirm. Hence we affirm of substance 



Io8 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, 

that it is at least action, — whether it is the action which 
merely exists, or that which moves, is conscious, thinks, 
wills, feels. And all we affirm of matter is that there 
are points and groups of points, greater or less, at which 
action, or force if you please, is perceptible through 
our senses. 

The fact that we perceive persistence and a certain 
regularity or fixed order in these manifestations of force 
or action, leads us to regard them as being perma- 
nent. This permanent order of persistent action we 
term ''nature," or the natural world. We may suppose, 
or imagine, or even assume, many things of the sub- 
stance, properties, and phenomena of nature, but there 
is one thing which we can and must affirm as certain, and 
that thing is action. The term "creation," therefore, can 
certainly signify to our thought nothing more nor less 
than those divine activities which consist as a system of 
conditions upon which spontaneous and self-determining 
action, that is, objective being, may and does arise. 
And because these divine activities are put forth with 
reference to and for the purpose of conditioning the 
spontaneous rise of self-determining beings, they are 
termed the objective action of God. 

These classes of beings, which arise spontaneously 
upon the conditions which the Creator thus posits and 
maintains, constitute dependent being. They must be 
thought as objective to God in so far as they are with- 
out consciousness of God. If they are consciously self- 
determining, as is man, they are consciously other than 
God. While this self-determining action arises in a 
nature which consists of the Creator's action, it is not 
conscious of that nature further than it is conscious of 
using it. By its conscious use of that nature it appro- 



CREATION. log 

priates and incorporates it into the self- consciousness of 
its own being. The self-determination of a being who 
is thus free to use, select, modify, develop, repress, or 
pervert the elements of his nature is what constitutes 
dependent personahty, or a finite person. 

A definite conception of creation or the natural 
world may be stated thus : — 

1. Creation is a system of conditioned Divine activi- 
ties which constitute conditions upon which dependent 
beings may arise and may determine their perfection, 
and so determine a perfect universe. 

2. If the perfect universe is developed in essential 
harmony with the conditions posited in creation — not- 
withstanding the rise of errors and accidents — it is a 
natural universe, naturally developed. 

3. If essential disharmony arise, modifying natural 
conditions, the world becomes thereby preternatural, 
that is, " aside from natural." 

4. If thereupon divine love evolve further or other 
conditions upon which the perfect universe may be 
achieved — notwithstanding the existence of essential 
disharmony — this evolution is supernatural. 

5. The line between the conditions posited in crea- 
tion and those which may be added for recovery from 
essential disharmony, is the line which distinguishes the 
natural from the supernatural. Correction of errors 
and irregularities must be thought attainable upon natu- 
ral conditions, but self-determined antagonism to love 
and its purpose in nature, perverting natural conditions 
to malign ends, is essential disharmony, unnatural, pre- 
ternatural, and may require extra natural or supernatural 
conditions to compass its correction or elimination. 

With the above view of the objective action of God, 



no THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

we may properly term the natural world a creation. 
Whether or not the method of creation is that of " evolu- 
tion " as held or opposed by scientists, does not concern 
us here. For whether the method of God's objective 
action may have occupied milHons of centuries extended 
through numberless stages of nebulae, organism, and life, 
building conditions upon which new forms of life arise to 
conditioQ the rise of still succeeding forms, before con- 
scious self-determination breaks forth in a personal uni- 
verse ; or whether he directly posits the conditions upon 
which races of finite persons arise and determine their 
development ; or whether he created dependent persons 
in a full-orbed finite perfection which they have degraded, 
cannot influence this question. In any case these objec- 
tive activities are but the goings forth of love's evolution 
devoted to the realization of an ideal universe. 

But to return to the above statement of our concep- 
tion of creation, its first item is of chief importance in 
this chapter : — 

" Creation is a system of conditioned divine activities 
which constitute conditions upon which dependent per- 
sons may arise and may determine their perfection, and 
so determine a perfect universe." 

This statement affirms that God conditions, and finite 
persons determine the universe. It implies also that 
the creation is perfect in that it affords the conditions 
upon which finite persons may determine their own per- 
fection and a perfect universe. Hence the fact and 
form of the natural world must be conditioned by the 
nature of the creator and the dependent freedom of the 
creature. We will therefore consider — 

I. Love, as the nature of the conditioning action and 
purpose of creation. 



CREATION. Ill 

II. Dependent freedom, as the nature of the deter- 
mining factor of the world. 

I. Under the first of these grand conditions we note 
that creation is chosen action, a step or movement in 
the evolution of love. The world is not a pre-existing 
thing, but is the dependent, objective product of creative 
will. 

Nor is it a necessary step in God's self-determination. 
Such a view cannot discriminate his unconditioned being, 
but must imply that the original agent, God, is depend- 
ent upon the universe as a means of his own self-con- 
scious perfection. " Unconditioned being " is essential 
to any rational view of being, and the only view consist- 
ent with the unconditioned being of God and the fact 
of conditioned finite being is that the latter is the chose?i 
product of God's objective effort He is absolutely 
independent; the universe is dependent upon him. 
Having found too that the nature of unconditioned, in- 
finite or independent being is love, we have been able 
to see that such nature is unconditioned perfection in 
itself; and that there is in it infinite freedom to act 
objectively or not, as he may choose, without implying 
augmentation, impairment, limitation, or abrogation of 
his infinite egoistic consciousness. Therefore we view 
creation as simply the evidence that he who is infinitely 
self- sufficient chooses, in his perfect altruistic freedom, 
to put forth objective and eternal activities in establish- 
ing and maintaining finite being. 

This choice implies an intention. Contemplated as 
an object of our thought, Creation is a matter of choice 
with the Creator, which implies an intention which 
accounts for the existence of the universe. The evo- 
lution of love is the method by which the divine 



112 2"/f£ EVOLUTION OF LOVE, 

intention is disclosed and carried out. The fact that 
it is an evolution does not preclude the fact that it has 
a motive for its disclosures. We distinctly admit that 
this intention may comprehend much more than we 
can discern. Yet even we can recognize that in love 
which amply accounts for the creation of a system of 
dependent being. We are indeed compelled to recog- 
nize in love a motive to such a project. 

We have seen in a former chapter that infinite being 
must be thought as having the spirit, or prompting 
tendency, to realize all possible being which may 
subsist with itself. And since in its realization of 
independent egoism there is the absolute freedom and 
prompting to altruistic action we must recognize the 
altruistic spirit of infinite love. We must recognize the 
perfect freedom, potency, and disposition of a love-per- 
fected egoism to realize eternal and limitless altruism. 

Since his nature is devotion to the realization of ideal 
being he must be thought conscious of a conception of 
a perfect conditioned universe, an ideal from which may 
be explicated an indefinitely extended relationship, and 
which can be actualized only by objective beings. 
Hence he must be thought to possess an altruistic 
spirit, which seeks the realization of every relational, 
conditioned, perfection, the actualization of all forms 
of truth, the determination of all benevolence. We 
cannot think of infinite egoistic love without including 
in the thought this eternal spirit of boundless altruism ; 
the spirit which seeks the realization of all ideals of 
being, every type of perfection, developing every line 
of beneficent relationship. It is the spirit of objective 
perfection. 

Since, as we have seen, the intending the perfect is 



CREATION. 11^ 

holiness, this altruistic spirit of love which determines 
itself as prompting to the realization of every perfection 
must be recognized by us as identical with what the 
Scriptures term the " Holy Spirit " or " Spirit of holi- 
ness," — not the formal or relational action of God, 
creating finite beings, but the concrete sentiment of 
infinite love, ever realized in the unconditioned perfec- 
tion of God, and ever prompting the realization of all 
conditioned ideals. 

If it is asked why or how there is in perfect being 
this spirit which prompts to a divine life of objective 
perfection, we must answer we cannot tell. Which is 
the same as to say we cannot tell " how being is 
made," or how God is as he is. Why or how there 
is in his perfect action the spirit, or active tendency, to 
realize finite or conditioned ideals, we do not attempt 
to answer further than to say that love is devotion to 
the realization of perfect being and is benevolent; 
and that is the same as to say that perfect egoism has, 
not only the capability, but the spirit of perfect 
altruism. 

We might say in a concrete, popular way that a being 
whose nature is love naturally desires objects to love, — 
objects that can know and prize and reciprocate his 
love, — hence he creates a world of persons. This 
statement, correct enough, provided we understand by 
the phrase " naturally desires " that God, knowing the 
good, the value, of love-determined being, and the 
ability of his love to successfully condition a universe 
of such beings, naturally, in the spirit of benevolence, 
desires to bestow this good upon others by creating 
them. 

What love is, in kind or quality, as subjective inten- 
8 



114 '^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

tion, it must be as objective purpose. The practical 
goodness of love-involved being is the practical quality 
of love-evolved being; and hence is implied in love's 
creative purpose. Since the purpose thus implied in 
love is the practical realization of the perfect it is the 
implied purpose in the creation of all being. The 
purpose of creation is the realization of a perfect uni- 
verse, and thus, benevolently, the bestowal of the good 
of being. 

A being whose nature is love cannot be thought as 
giving existence to other beings in an aimless, acci- 
dental, or blind experimentation. But love, as altruistic 
spirit, is intention as to objective being; and the evolu- 
tion of love is the process which achieves the full deter- 
mination, or carrying out. of that intention. Hence, 
the realization of the ideal, which is impHed in this 
intention is the teleological end sought in love's object- 
ive action. The Creator, conscious of love's resource, 
is conscious that the ideal universe which is compre- 
hended in love's altruistic intention can be reahzed by 
an evolution of love. The evolution of love in creation, 
therefore, is not to be thought as a purposeless demon- 
stration of force, but as love's method of realizing its 
objective ideal. Hence the evolution of love is teleo- 
logical ; it is projected with a definite end in view. 
That end must be the realization of a perfect universe. 

It is in love that we find that creation must have an 
adequate purpose which fully justifies the choice to 
create dependent beings. Nothing can be created 
which is not implied in the grand intention of love. 
Since love only, because of its infinite altruistic free- 
dom, can afford the conditions to a creation, love alone 
is able to assure an adequate result in creation. i\ny 



CREATION. 11^ 

creation therefore which is possible to thought must be 
prompted and projected as an objective determination 
of love. All created beings and all phenomena must 
be thought as in pursuance of such determination. We 
cannot evade the implication that the motive of love's 
evolution is not a capricious demonstration of force, 
but the creation of beings that they may realize a great 
purpose. This purpose is implied and conditioned in 
love. It is the benevolent altruism of love choosing 
objective determination. 

The highest good of conditioned being, as God 
knows and prizes it, must be included in the purpose 
of his giving being to others. We affirm that the 
" highest good " is the object of creation on the ground, 
only, that love is the nature of God and of his creative 
action ; and that the greatest good must be the practical 
value of perfect action ; and that all action must be 
a good in proportion as that action approximates per- 
fection. More expHcitly : God's purpose in creation is 
to reahze the finite or objective ideal, "the truth." 
He, as the Son, is conscious of it in thought ; the 
universe must determine it as thing. It is the realiza- 
tion, or actualization of the ideal of finite, relational, 
being. This intended perfection in creation is holy, its 
practical realization is the highest finite good ; and this 
is affirmed on the ground that love, as action which 
seeks the realization of the ideal in being, is both per- 
fectly holy and perfectly benevolent. Hence the pur- 
pose is the realization of ideal, or perfect finite being ; 
and the benevolent quality of love implies that this 
purpose is a bestowal of the highest conditioned good. 
Therefore the purpose in projecting finite being is to 
actualize the finite ideal, achieve the highest objective 



Ii6 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

exercise of love, the satisfaction of which is the realiza- 
tion of the greatest finite good. 

What is the chief good / Our ans^Yer must be : the 
practical satisfaction of love is the supreme good, or 
self-determining action which realizes the highest quali- 
ties of being. But what are the highest qualities of 
being? Unquestionably, those qualities which are 
founded and perfectly reaHzed in the unconditioned 
nature of God, and may be realized, in kind, by con- 
ditioned persons. This is the same as to say that the 
highest mode of life, perfectly adjusted life, conditioned 
or unconditioned, actualizes the supreme good. And 
since love is the nature of perfect action, which deter- 
mines the highest quahties of being, love is the highest 
mode of life ; and its self-satisfaction is the supreme 
good. It can be satisfied with nothing, however pleas- 
urable, but the determination of the highest qualities of 
one's being. 

The pleasure, however great, which results from de- 
grading action, or is not incident to exaltation or excel- 
lence of being, is not a good and cannot satisfy love's 
spirit of self-determination. Thus, the kind of action 
which determines the perfection of its own qualities in 
the unconditioned being or achieves it by process in 
conditioned being must be thought the highest good. 
While we may have the utmost faith that love will afford 
the largest and most enduring pleasure, as incident to 
its action, processes, and qualities, we are quite sure that 
pain is often incident to the best achievement of its 
conditioned activities. Hence, when we speak of the 
highest good of finite being, we do not imply that good 
is to be measured by the degree of pleasure which may 
be incident thereto. 



CREATION. 117 

The good, then, is the practical quality of perfect 
action or being ; practical quality of God. Harmony 
with God is a matter of quality, and to be conscious of 
harmony with the perfect being is, in kind or quality, the 
consciousness of the highest mode of dependent per- 
sonality. This is consciousness of the supreme good, 
in kind. Its degree is modified by conditions. It is 
love's perfect, though conditioned action. 

A mother who toils and watches that her children 
may have health and comfort, scarce takes a second 
thought as to whether they will ever repay her, or be 
able, indeed, to contribute anything to her comfort. It 
is not the thought of remuneration which prompts her 
toil, solicitude, and undying interest for them ; it is love. 
Love is her supreme, motherly good, — all the more 
tender and precious if the loved ones are helpless to 
repay her. 

" There is a love, unstained by selfishness, 
The outpouring tide of self-abandonment, 
That loves to lotie : and deems its preciousness 
Repaid iit loving.^^ 

Good is a quality of love, — not a quantitative result 
which is sought as an object, or end, to which love is a 
means. 

This is the dividing line, or differentiating point be- 
tween Faith and Utilitarianism. Faith recognizes that 
the perfection of being is the supreme good ; and from 
this position subjects the actual self, which the finite 
person is, to the ideal self which he would become. 
Thus, in a finite person's life, faith conditions his action, 
love, which realizes perfection of quality. Utilitarianism 
seeks quantitative satisfaction for the actual self, and 
terms that the good. Faith seeks love, and accounts its 



Il8 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

qualities and powers as the supreme good. Utilitarian- 
ism, as a mode of life, is systematic selfishness ; faith 
conditions devotion to the perfect life. 

Men speak of " acting on principle ^' and '^ doing 
right because it is right." That is to say, by doing right 
they enact the truth ; and the truth is of the divine ideal. 
This is devotion to the ideal, in the faith that the infi- 
nite ideal is actuahzed in God ; and is therefore the 
supreme criterion of right quality, righteousness. What 
is termed policy, as opposed to principle, makes present, 
actual self the criterion of good, and implies that in the 
degree the demands of this self are met is the good at- 
tained. This ignores the authority of the ideal as crite- 
rion of conduct ; and ignores that the good is found in 
realizing an ideal life. Faith holds that love to God, as 
to the perfect, and love to fellow-beings, with a view to 
their perfection, is the highest mode of life. Utilitarian- 
ism makes the quantitative satisfaction of one's actual 
self the highest mode of life, and gratitude for received 
benefits the highest mode of finite love. With the 
former, righteousness is the actuahzing of truth. With 
the latter, righteousness is the promoting of comfort, 
pleasure. The God of faith is an actual perfection to be 
loved, communed with, and copied as the absolute crite- 
rion, exemplar, and inspirer of personal perfection. The 
God of Utilitarianism is but a convenience. With the 
one, quantitative possession is but a means by which to 
achieve quality of being. With the other, quality of be- 
ing is desirable only to accumulate quantitative satisfac- 
tion. It is the old question, as between Abel and Cain, 
Stoic and Epicurean, the Sermon on the Mount and 
Jewish greed, and as between those who still think that 
the universe exists for the perfection of finite being and 



CREATION, 11^ 

those who hold, on the other hand, that its object is 
pleasurable satisfaction. 

Of course, the " Evolution of Love " sustains the 
Faith-view. Since love seeks to realize the perfect, it 
follows that the perfection of finite being is the grand 
object to be accomplished. Hence the highest mode 
of life, the highest determination of character is by de- 
votion to the true, the perfect, indifferent as to whether 
greater good could be otherwise attained. " For a 
man's hfe consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
which he possesseth." The quahtative perfection of the 
universe must be attained before the degree of good 
possible to finite beings can be intelligently estimated, 
or the attainment of it be free from all embarrassments. 

Nothing, it seems, can be clearer than that living, not 
possessing, is the true excellence ; and that right living, 
living in interaction, communion, companionship, with 
the perfect must be the supreme good. Nor can any 
affirmation be more confidently made than that Utilita- 
rianism is, after all, nothing but readjusted selfishness. 

The universe must attain perfection in kind before 
it can be free from disadvantage in determining the de- 
gree of its good. When perfect harmony and perfect 
security are achieved, then the largest freedom for good 
will begin to be realized. 

These affirmations are made, of course, upon the 
ground that the good is but a practical quality in love 
which is the perfect mode of being ; and benevolence, 
the bestowal of good, is its incidental outcome. It 
cannot be thought that any addition to his own 
nature or good is sought by the infinite One in the crea- 
tion. The Independent cannot be thought to depend 
in any sense upon anything ; especially not upon de- 



I20 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

pendent or conditioned action or being. Hence we 
affirm that the creation is purely a bestowal of being 
upon those created ; and since love is the nature of the 
Creator and his objective action is an evolution of love, 
it must follow that this bestowal of being is purely 
benevolent. 

The perfect altruistic freedom, the infinite unselfish- 
ness, must find in this purpose ample incentive to 
create and sustain other beings to share its good. 
Dependent being, which is a positive good which is, 
upon the whole, better than non-existence, is such 
being as love can benevolently authorize. Since love is 
action which is devoted to the realization of the ideal, 
an ideal system of dependent being must be thought a 
worthy object of such devotement. If God can conceive 
a system of dependent being which may not, upon the 
whole, impose wrong upon any portion or person in it, 
but place it within the power and conditions of each 
being therein to make his existence a positive good, 
benevolence would prompt to the creation of such a 
system. Or if, in his absolute knowledge of love, God 
sees that it is a kind of action which can develop such 
a system of good, then benevolent reason appears why 
love which attains infinite egoistic good should also be 
devoted to attaining the highest altruistic good. It 
seems impossible to see that love would purpose other- 
wise. Not for his perfect good, but for his glory, the 
manifestation of his perfection and goodness, he has 
created all things. 

It comes then to this : The bestowal of perfect finite 
being and all it may achieve is the purpose to which 
infinite love is the motive in creation. Here that su- 
preme devotement to perfect being which appears in 



CREATION. 121 

God as infinite self-love sweeps out into the objective 
process of maintaining the perfect conditioned being of 
finite creatures, and illustrates the infinite and insepar- 
able holiness and benevolence of perfect egoism. Love, 
the perfect action which realizes the infinite in God, 
seeks to achieve the perfect finite. Inasmuch as non- 
existence has no possibilities and is worthless, and in 
being only is the possibility of good, the founder of 
finite being founds it for all its possible good. Love 
does this in founding beings which may actualize an 
ideal in their individual being, and an ideal universe as a 
whole. 

It is because his nature is love that the independent 
One is the all-supporting author of dependent being. 
This is to say that the infinite Person has, in his perfect 
action, love, a perfect egoistic life and chooses also a 
perfect altruistic life. One is the consciousness of un- 
conditioned perfection; the other is the objective or 
altruistic fife in which he has the consciousness of con- 
ditioning perfection in others. His perfect egoism has 
the spirit and potency of perfect altruism, realizes the 
infinite unconditioned being in himself, and determines 
the fact and form of the dependent universe. Perfect 
in himself, he is perfect for all others. 

When we speak of perfect objective action or being, 
it is to be understood that perfect conditioned action or 
being is meant. It is in this sense that we affirm crea- 
tion must be perfect. 

Love's creative action must project the highest ideal 
of conditioned being, — a perfect universe. It must be 
the possibility to the highest finite personality, and by 
implication, to the highest conditioned good. Devote- 
ment to ideal perfection is, in creation, devotement to 



122 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

ideal conditioned perfection. What love is, in kind, in 
infinite self-determination, must be its character in finite 
determination. Since it is perfect action, it must be 
thought perfect in its objective activities, with no ex- 
ception, save as limited by the conditions which are 
impHed in its relation to its object. It must be thought 
to project none other than a perfect conditioned uni- 
verse, the maximum excellence of conditioned being. 
This is to say that love is not only supreme devotement 
to egoistic perfection, but, in the creator, is supreme 
devotement to the realization of altruistic perfection. 
Without impairing or perverting itself, but in direct ac- 
cord with its own ineffaceable perfectness, it creates 
and sustains a ceaseless universe of dependent being. 
It abides in the consciousness of unconditioned perfec- 
tion while determining its self-consciousness of perfect 
conditioned being ; abides in the consciousness of abso- 
lute reality while consciously real in all its objective 
relations ; abides in the practical experience of infinite 
good, and also bestows the highest finite good. Perfect 
action in itself, it is perfect as it relates itself to objects. 
God's objective action, then, must be regarded as the 
conditioned goings-forth of love in relation to objects. 

Creative love only conditions perfection. Being the 
nature of the force which expresses itself in the creation 
of dependent beings, it is the content which determines 
the forms of creation. These forms and their relations 
to the creator, toward each other, and within themselves 
are results founded by love. Hence, love's holiness, or 
perfectness of intention, must have in it the highest 
ideal of dependent being ; and its objective action 
aims to realize that ideal. The creation, then, must 
be the highest type of conditioned action, realizing the 



CREATION. 123 

highest conditioned good, as a whole. The creator must 
be able to say of his work : " Behold it is very good." 

Since, as seen in chapter three, Part First, ''condi- 
tioning and determining " comprehend the whole of 
conditioned being, it is clear that creation is a system 
of activides which only estabhshes conditions for the 
rise and development of finite beings. And since we 
have seen that creative action is conditioned, it is both 
conditioned and conditioning. It seeks to realize the 
highest form of finite being ; but as such " highest form " 
must include persons who, though dependent, are self- 
determining within their conditions, it is plain that 
creative action is confined to estabhshing conditions 
simply. It estabhshes conditions upon which finite 
beings may themselves determine their perfection and 
experience their highest conditioned good. And since 
the whole universe in its entire history is interrelated, 
it must be viewed as a whole which condidons each of 
its members ; and the whole term of his career and 
scope of his relationship must be considered when we 
estimate the excellence or perfection of any finite being. 
Hence it is the highest type of dependent being, as a 
whole, and the perfecting of each being as conditioned 
by the perfecting of the whole, which we affirm when 
we say that creation is perfect conditioning action, at 
all times and places affording to all beings the best 
conditions to their perfection which perfect objective 
action can posit. 

Since created beings must be conditioned beings, and 
also conditioning each other and conditioned by each 
other, lower orders constituting conditions to the higher, 
love's choice is to create them of such type and upon 
such conditions as will afford the highest good, upon 



124 -^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

the whole, to each and all. Such is the perfect crea- 
tion ; and love, seeking the perfect, seeks the highest 
conditioned good possible to each and all, and at all 
times. The highest type of perfection for the universe, 
as a whole and forever, must condition the type and the 
good of individuals and the universe at the various 
stages of their development. Hence the degree of ex- 
cellence, however great or small at any moment, is con- 
ditioned by all the influences which are concerned in 
reahzing the highest good upon the whole. Whatever 
influences there may be which hinder, retard, or ac- 
celerate the actualization of the ideal universe, they 
are parts of the conditions upon which the perfection 
of finite being is to be realized. These conditions 
may be more or less influential at one time than at 
another, and by so much will influence the degree of 
good reahzed at such time. But the fact remains, as an 
imphcation of love, that the degree of good realized by 
finite beings at any particular stage of their being is the 
highest possible to them at that stage, considering the 
determining forces and the conditions which^ as a whole, 
can afford a perfect universe. 

An evolving force which is holy and good would 
provide that the beings who are creatures of its evolu- 
tion should be conditioned at all times and at all points 
for their greatest possible good. But "their greatest 
possible good " means the greatest good possible to all 
and to the entire term of their existence ; hence this 
greatest sum of good must condition the degree of 
good possible to each person at any given time or place. 
All comes to this : A Creator whose nature is love will 
secure the greatest good, upon the whole, to which his 
creatures as a whole may be made receptive. 



CREATION. 12 K 

Since the objective action of God must be thought as 
always seeking to reaHze his ideal, the creator must be 
regarded as actualizing an ideal world, so far forth as 
the world is his action. This implies that the creative 
action is not only perfect as conditioned action, but is 
perfect conditioning action also. This, however, does 
not imply that the universe is perfect. 

T/ie creation is perfect, but the tmiverse is not. A 
perfect universe must at least be one in which every 
dependent being who has any degree of self-determina- 
tion acts in harmony with the conditions of his being, 
perfectly interacts with the creator's action ; one in 
which beings of conditioned freedom act in harmony 
with the conditions assigned by the Creator. The ac- 
tion which founds them and their natural conditions 
constitutes the creation ; but their self-determined 
selves and their assigned conditions, as used or abused 
by them, constitute the universe. The Creator's action 
affords the conditions in finite beings upon which their 
intentions arise, and upon which their action proceeds 
in all respects. If their action is in accordance with the 
intention implied in those conditions, they may be said 
to articulate, or act in harmony, with the creative action ; 
that is, in harmony with their nature. They may choose 
to articulate with that creative action, or they may 
neglect or abuse it, and so pervert it. The Creator's 
action is " very good ; " but if neglected, abused, per- 
verted by the action of dependent beings it must fall 
very far short of being good. The perfection of the 
universe is in the perfect interaction or articulation of 
the creature with the Creator ; but the perfection of 
creation is in the possibility of such interaction. 

The possibility of harmonious interaction of depend- 



126 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

ent with the Independent, then, must be the perfect 
creation. Such perfect creation does not exclude the 
possibiHty of disharmony, nor does an inharmonious 
universe argue an imperfect creation. A creation that 
is proof against disharmony is but a machine, and can 
never develop into an ideal universe. The perfection of 
creation is that it has the possibilities, affords the condi- 
tions of a perfect objective universe ; and it is these 
possibilities that render it liable to disharmonies. 

The possibihty of the perfectly harmonious interaction 
of dependent with independent being is the possibility of 
universal harmony. Love's perfect action is the basis 
of implied harmony between the independent subject 
and the dependent objects, who, as subjects or actors, 
may harmonize with the Creator and with each other. 
Thus, as divine love is the basis of universal harmony, 
the loving reciprocation of divine love by finite persons 
is the harmonizing action which is to determine a per- 
fect universe. But as dependent persons are free to 
reciprocate the creative love or not, they may deter- 
mine their action and development, determine them- 
selves, so as to produce defect and disharmony within 
the bosom of a perfect creation. 

What types of dependent being shall be created are 
implied in love. Love's ideal is the law which decides 
what these types may be. Thus, love implies that no 
beings will exist except such as may actualize an ideal 
which implies their highest good. Whatever may be 
their type it must realize good to them in the degree the 
type is practically attained. The full actuahzation of 
the ideal of any type of being must yield the highest 
good possible to such being. Actualizing their ideal 
according to their type is the method of attaining their 



CREATION. 127 

chief good. Whatever may be the form of devotement 
by which each actuahzes his ideal, that is his form or 
mode of love. It thus appears that love is the perfect 
or supreme determining action in all conscious beings. 
It is, in all, the action which realizes their ideal. 

Without such perfect action within their conditions 
dependent beings do not actualize their ideal selves ; 
hence cannot achieve their highest good, but must 
incur condemnation from their ideal. The discrepancy 
between their ideal and actual self is the measure of 
their condemnation. Discrepancy between the ideal 
and actual self of which persons are conscious is con- 
sciousness of failure, misfortune, or guilt, or of all com- 
bined. The perfection of the individual, like the per- 
fection of the universe, depends upon realizing the ideal 
which love's creative action prescribes in his type. In 
the measure this perfection is approximated is the good 
of each achieved. 

It is vain to speculate whether the creation, as we 
perceive it, is a perfect creation. The Hmitedness of 
our perception of it or of the entire career of even one 
being prevents our forming a judgment from the world- 
point of view. We hold all optimism and pessimism 
based upon an attempted balance-sheet of the world's 
good and ill, as most shallow and vain wrangling. Only 
from ontological implication can a judgment be ration- 
ally ventured ; and that judgment must rest upon the 
nature of absolute reality. And since reality is action, 
and the nature of perfect action is love, and the crea- 
tion is an evolution of love, that creation must be an 
evolution of real beneficence. It must be upon the 
whole benevolent and good, — perfect in the determi- 
nation of an order or form of dependent being. 



128 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

Whether that perfect form of dependent being must 
be thought as created full-orbed or progressively devel- 
oped through a series of stages will be considered later. 
Let it suffice to recognize here that a positing power 
'vvhose nature is love, and therefore true and good, holy 
and benevolent, must ultimately achieve such perfect 
world, — a world not ultimately true and good, but al- 
ways true and good, always of the highest beneficence 
within the conditions imposed by the essential factors of 
a perfect universe, namely, the love that cannot rest 
short of realizing the ideal of all finite being, and the 
self-determining freedom of dependent persons. 

Perfect altruism implies that every type of being which 
may be founded in holiness and benevolence may, per- 
haps must arise at some stage in the creative process ; 
and that none other can arise than such as may be made 
participants in the harmonies of perfect finite benefi- 
cence. If disharmonies arise, disturbing the right relations 
of created beings, it is because some or all of these be- 
ings are able to determine themselves otherwise than as 
purposed by love. Yet these disharmonies are within the 
all-conditioning embrace of love's limitless altruism, and 
w^ill be rendered either self-correcdng or self-eliminating. 

What are termed physical disturbances and animal 
antagonisms may or may not be real disharmonies in 
the world order. Like the questions of optimism and 
pessimism they are indeterminable by us, for lack of full 
data. Inasmuch as the lowest forms of conscious 
being may have, and, for aught w^e can know, do have 
an instinctively sought perfection, in attaining which the 
interest, the joy of being is realized ; inasmuch as 
the lowest type of person has his ideal to actualize, his 
chief good to attain, his sacred to adore, his beautiful to 



CREATION. I2Q 

enjoy, this love-projected type of being must be thought 
intrinsically good. All other things are good only as 
related to being. Non-being is nothing, has neither 
quality nor worth. Evil or undesirable being is abused, 
debased being. Being may have its pangs, its woes, but 
conditioned in love they are incident to attaining higher 
excellence. Non-being is without a pang, but it is with- 
out a thrill. The self-determining agent of lowest type 
finds a charm in his being which makes him strong to 
endure all hardship so long as his self-determination is 
not degrading, but upward, toward self-perfection. It 
is only when self-determination sinks toward its entire 
loss in complete dependence that the charm of being 
can be lost, or existence cease to be a good. Hence, 
we say that in being only are the possibilities of good ; 
and all forms of being must be objects of interest with 
that divine spirit which we have termed " supreme 
devotement to the determination of being ; " perfect 
being in the independent, perfect conditioned being in 
the dependently self-determining, instinctive being in 
the instinctively determined. 

A study of cosmic phenomena may indeed develop 
a probability that the Creator is benevolent and his 
action harmonious, but it cannot decide these questions. 
Religious experience may deepen this probability into a 
profound conviction, but this amounts to nothing more 
than to corroborate what has been primarily implied in 
the divine nature. This corroboration, it is true, may 
amount to a spiritual demonstration, but a demonstration 
wrought upon a previous acceptance by faith of the point 
in question, the benevolence of God. The more we 
learn of his cosmic activities, and the more accurately we 
articulate with them, the more successful are our in- 

9 



130 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

dustries, the more perfect our arts, the more accurate 
our sciences, the sounder our finances, the more pro- 
gressive our civiHzation, the better our health, and the 
more symmetrical and strong our characters. This is, 
however, the full height of the cosmic argument for the 
benevolence of the creator. It argues that if all 
dependent persons were perfectly self-adjusted to the 
creator's action, there is the highest probability that 
their greatest good would be realized. But it is only in 
the fact that Jove is the nature of the co-ordinating 
action of the universe that we have independent assur- 
ance that the creation is perfect. The holiness of love 
assures that God's intention in his objective action can- 
not fall below his ideal of a universe. This impHcation 
is as clear as that the self-determined nature of God 
cannot fall below infinite perfection without being condi- 
tioned and condemned by his infinite conception, or ideal. 
A perfect God imphes a perfect creator ; neither can be 
realized except in the unconditioned and all-conditioning 
perfect action, love. The moral authority of love's per- 
fect action must condemn any form of creation which 
falls below the possible realization of an ideal universe. 
The perfect action of love implies a perfect conception 
and a complete achievement of dependent perfection. 

The ideal universe^ God's ideal, his conception of 
perfect finite being, must be quite beyond all that 
human imagination can picture. No attempt to describe 
it can be tolerated. Yet concerning it there are certain 
implications which reason must affirm. Since love is 
devoted to realizing the perfect, it is a perfect universe 
only which its evolution can have in view. This action^ 
though conditioned, is perfect within its conditions. 
God's action, which is the going forth of love only by 



CREATION. 12 1 

virtue of its devotion to the perfect, cannot be self-con- 
scious love if it seek less than to realize the ideal. Not 
only does love realize the absolute perfect in the 
independent being, and the relative ideal in the 
" Eternal Son," the creator, but, having chosen to create 
a universe, love must be thought devoted to the 
realization of an ideal universe. 

Moreover, an ideal universe when actually realized is a 
perfect universe ; a perfect universe realizes the highest 
conditions of good ; and divine love acting objectively, 
though within limited conditions, cannot imply less than 
this highest conditioned good. 

However the perfect universe may be or become, it 
must, nevertheless, be conditioned by the relations of 
subject and object, and dependence. But since love is 
the nature of that action which creates and carries on the 
universe, love is the all-comprehending condition which 
assures a universe which shall be a perfect realization of 
ideal finite being, the object of a perfect determination 
of divine altruism. 

On this account the ideal universe must condition the 
creation and carrying on of the actual universe, the 
natural world. All that is created and all that is de- 
veloped on the part of nature has reference to the ideal 
universe, and must be estimated according to that 
criterion. Whatever may be the degree of good or ill 
actually experienced in the universe, the implication of 
love is that it is the highest good of which existing con- 
ditions will admit ; and existing conditions at any given 
time are imposed by their relation to the actualizing 
of love's ideal universe. At each point in the history of 
the universe the highest good is realized which can be 
upon the conditions which ultimately afford a perfect 



132 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

universe. Hence, the creation is perfect and good 
because it affords the natural co?iditiotis upon which the 
ideal universe may be realized. 

All this implies that the ideal universe which love 
seeks in its evolution very far transcends any that 
power can create outright. If creation, as evolved by 
love, is not the full-orbed, unalloyed good of perfect 
finite being, it is owing, not to a defect, but an excel- 
lence in creation. This excellence is that creation 
affords, not a perfect mechanism, but a stable basis from 
which divine love perpetually evolves conditions upon 
which finite persons may determine ever- progressing 
companionship with each other and with the infinite 
person, — love's ideal universe. 

The perfection of dependent personality cannot be 
created ; hence a perfect universe cannot be created. 
Personality consists in self-determination, dependent 
personality consists in dependent or conditioned self- 
determination. Hence dependent persons must deter- 
mine their own conditioned perfection. To suppose 
the creation of perfect dependent persons would be to 
suppose a contradiction, hence it is impossible to 
thought ; persons determine their own perfection. This 
they may do, dependent upon the conditions which 
the creator affords. Perfect creation is simply the af- 
fording perfect conditions upon which dependent per- 
sons may determine their perfect being, and thereby 
determine a perfect universe. 

II. Dependent freedom, or dependent self-deter- 
mination, being one of the factors which determines the 
universe, that factor, as well as creative action, must be 
recognized as essential to the perfecting of the universe. 
These two main factors comprehend and express all 



CREATION. j-^ 

the conditions incident to the project of a universe ; 
and since love is the nature of the divine action which 
affords the original conditions of finite being, we are 
assured that these original conditions are afforded for 
the purpose of achieving a universe of perfect persons. 
These two factors co-operating, the ideal universe will 
be realized. 

The perfectness of the natural world, created with 
reference to love's ideal world, has its chief exponent 
in the free self-determination of finite persons. While 
this is an excellence without which there could be no 
objective universe, it may, of course, menace the order 
and harmony of the world, and baffle the realization of 
the ideal universe. Inasmuch as each person is free 
to choose what his action shall be, in all those respects 
in which he determines himself, it is plain that the 
perfection of the universe must depend upon the will 
of each finite person as well as upon the will of the 
creator. Accepting the creator's action as the co-ordi- 
nating ground with and upon which all his creatures 
may harmoniously interact, it remains for dependent 
persons to determine the perfection of the universe by 
determining themselves in harmony with him. But 
since dependent persons may or may not harmonize 
with the conditions which creative love posits as the 
co-ordinating ground of their action, it is clear that the 
most which creation can do toward achieving a perfect 
universe is to estabhsh the most favorable conditions 
upon which the harmonious action of dependent per- 
sons may be secured. Hence love implies that their 
nature and natural environment are created in the form 
most favorable to their perfect harmonization. The 
creation is perfect, then, for the reason that it affords 



124 "^HE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

adequate conditions upon which dependent persons may 
determine perfect dependent personality. 

But since one person cannot determine the self-deter- 
mination of another, but can only determine conditions 
upon which another may or must determine himself, it 
is also true that the conditions thus imposed may be 
modified by the persons who act upon them, using or 
abusing them, or determining themselves otherwise than 
in harmony with them. It is evident that in condition- 
ing the finite perfection of dependent persons the 
creator enables them to condition his own action. 
Hence we may affirm of the conditions to a perfect 
universe that they must be the joint product of the 
Creator and his creatures ; and this is the same as to say 
that the perfectness of creative action implies original 
conditions which, though modified by dependent per- 
sons, may yet serve as a basis upon which errors may 
be corrected, and dependent persons may realize the 
divine ideal of dependent personality. 

Since, then, the two factors which determine the 
universe are divine love, affording the original condi- 
tions, and dependent persons, determining themselves 
upon these conditions, — or upon these conditions as 
modified in and by themselves, — since these factors 
determine the universe, the perfection of it depends 
upon the willing interaction of dependent persons with 
the independent. 

But the determining themselves in co-ordination with 
the conditions which divine love posits in their nature 
is simply to reciprocate that love by devotion to God as 
absolute perfection. This is their highest devotement 
to the perfect, — pure, unalloyed love. 

Self-love, which is devotement to self-perfection, is 



CREATION. 13 e 

not only in harmony with this supreme love of God, 
because he is infinite perfection, but is anticipated and 
comprehended by it ; its highest reahzation results as 
incident to this supreme devotement to the absolutely 
perfect. For a dependent person to love the infinitely 
perfect one supremely, trusting that his own best self 
will be attained incidentally therewith is trusting that his 
devotion to supreme perfection will determine self-per- 
fection. The supreme action, love toward God, reacts 
as the determination of pure self-love. Love of the infi- 
nite ideal which is actualized in God comprehends de- 
votion to the ideal in one's self, and realizes the ideal 
self. This voluntary committing the fortunes of self-love 
to his supreme love of God, by a dependent person, is 
the highest form of faith ; next to it is that faith which 
risks the interests of actual self by seeking them only as 
incident to the realization of his ideal self. 

Love toward fellow finite beings, which is devote- 
ment to their perfection, is likewise of a piece with this 
same supreme devotion to the perfect. 

Moreover, supreme devotion to the perfect, steadfast 
love toward God, comprehending and developing pure 
self-love and universal mutual love is holy, because of 
its perfect intention. It achieves also the supreme 
good, because it realizes practical perfection. It is 
perfect dependent being, in companionship with inde- 
pendent being. 

These affirmations concerning the actual universe 
which shall realize love's ideal warrant the affirmation 
that the perfect universe must be (i) harmonious as 
unity, (2) free as caprice, yet (3) secure as fate. These 
three grand characteristics are all self-conscious in love, 
and are to be enacted, determined, by finite persons, 



136 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



perfectly loving God upon the conditions which creative 
love affords. 

1. If I were the only person in existence I would be 
at liberty to do as I please ; but as soon as another 
person exists, the perfection of our existence implies 
that our action shall be harmoniously adjusted toward 
each other ; and if I have established the conditions of 
his existence he is dependent upon me, and he must 
determine his harmonization with me by acting in har- 
mony with these conditions. This assumes, of course, 
that the conditions of his being which I have estabhshed 
are essentially harmonious in themselves and with me. 
So also when another and another person come to 
exist upon the same conditions, the perfection of this 
community of beings is determined by their choosing to 
act in harmonious adjustment to each other; and such 
action is accomphshed by their acting in harmony with 
the common conditions which I have established for 
their existence. Hence it is clear that perfection im- 
plies complete harmony in all the action and inter-action 
of persons who exist in relation to each other. How- 
ever vast may be the number of persons composing the 
universe, the same truth appHes ; the perfection of the 
universe necessarily implies complete harmony in all 
their multiplied relations, and each one bears his part in 
determining this harmony. 

2. Freedom, the largest self-determining freedom 
possible to dependent beings, must be affirmed of the 
perfect universe. Since personality consists in self- 
determination, and perfect personality is perfect self- 
determination, or independent being, perfect dependent 
personality is the greatest degree of self-determining 
freedom consistent with dependence of being. And 



CREATION. 137 

since a perfect universe is one of the highest interaction 
of finite with infinite being, it follows that the highest 
degree of self-determination possible to dependent 
persons is requisite to a perfect universe. 

But the self-determining freedom of a conditioned 
person means freedom to act upon his natural condi- 
tions ; he may use or abuse these conditions. If he 
abuse them he may modify them and thus impair them 
as conditions to his interaction with the infinite, or with 
his fellow dependent beings, and thus debase his con- 
ditions, render them more limiting to his freedom, and 
thus narrow its scope. Free action may be circum- 
scribed in the scope of its operation, but is never modi- 
fied in the quality of freedom. Self-determination is 
free. If it is not free it is not self-determining. Re- 
striction of scope Hmits the extent to which freedom 
may be exercised, but does not impair its free quality 
within the scope where it is exercised. There may be 
action which is free in some respects but restricted in 
others. In the respects in which it is free it is com- 
pletely so ; in the respects in which it is restricted it is 
without freedom. Hence it follows that as a person 
may, by abuse, impair his natural conditions, he may in- 
crease his limitations, restrict and ultimately crush his 
freedom. Thus it is that the highest range of freedom 
possible to each dependent person must be self-deter- 
mined. If he were created at that altitude of freedom 
it must be maintained by his self-determination. If 
creation places him in a lower and narrower scope of 
conditions which he may gradually outgrow, and thus 
progressively rise to the highest and widest range of 
freedom possible to a dependent person, he must ac- 
complish it by his own self-determination. 



138 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



It is clear, then, that a perfect universe, harmonious 
in the action and interaction of Creator and creature, 
must be determined finally by the creature. The theo- 
logians of a past day contended much over the harmo- 
nization of divine sovereignty and human free-will. Had 
they clearly considered that the Creator's objective action 
is but to maintain the conditions upon which dependent 
persons may arise and determine a perfect universe, it 
could not have been difficult to find scope for human 
fireedom ; and since this conditioning action is self-chosen 
by the Creator, they could just as easily have seen divine 
sovereignty, independence, exercised in hnposing up07i 
himself the obligations and conditions which human 
fireedom imphes. 

3. Security, the assurance against disharmony, not- 
withstanding the largest finite freedom, must characterize 
a perfect universe. A person who is susceptible to evil 
temptations is not perfect, nor is a universe perfect 
which is Hable to discord and defection. It does not 
realize perfect conditions to companionship of finite 
persons with each other or with the infinite Being. Nor 
can it realize his ideal to the Creator or achieve his 
purpose in creation. Perfect interaction of finite with 
infinite cannot be thought as tainted with a shade of 
apprehension or suspicion of ill. 

Here, indeed, is a dilemma. The largest freedom of 
dependent persons is requisite to the thought of a per- 
fect universe ; yet this freedom cannot but be thought 
a continual menace to its harmony, and a menace to 
harmony is imperfection. The perfect universe must be 
harmonious, must be free, yet must be secure against the 
dangers of freedom. This security cannot be attained 
by any necessitative measures. It must be maintained 



CREATION. 129 

along with the largest finite freedom. But it must con- 
tain an improbability of defection so great as to be 
practically equivalent to an impossibility. Or, to state 
it positively, the probability of steadfastness must be 
practically equal to certainty. 

Moreover, such perfect knowledge of his relationship 
toward God and his fellow-beings as will preclude dis- 
cord by error, mistake, is implied in each person, in 
order that the perfect harmony of the universe may not 
be marred by harmful inadvertence. 

Such is the moral security which is impHed in the 
conception of a perfect universe, — a security which is 
not the result of force or fate, though it render the 
improbability of discord or defection practically equal to 
fate. 1'he fact that it is a moral security implies that 
it is determined by dependent persons themselves. It 
must be that experienced demonstration of faith of 
which perfect love toward God is conscious, and which 
comprehends the realization of self-love. After this de- 
monstration is achieved the supreme devotion to God as 
absolute perfection, which had demonstrated this faith, 
abides in augmented intensity and power. Hence it 
appears that the supreme love of finite persons toward 
God determines their eternal security in universal har- 
mony, — a personal harmony of which they can be 
fully conscious only in the consciousness of the fullest 
freedom of dependent beings. This perfection of finite 
persons in harmony, freedom, and security may be deter- 
mined by and in themselves upon the original conditions 
which creation affords. 

But this perfection of the universe is simply perfec- 
tion in kind, not in degree ; in quality, not in quantity. 
Though unspeakable good as well as unutterable ill may 



I40 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

have attended its development, yet the object of crea- 
tion — namely, the highest possible conditioned good — 
has not yet been realized. The conditions adequate to 
achieve it have just been established. The objective 
scope for God's altruistic freedom is only now attained. 
In his personal perfection God is conscious of perfect 
altruistic freedom ; but in a perfect universe, in kind, he 
finds perfect objective altruistic freedom. The altruistic 
spirit is perfectly self-conscious in the Creator, but it 
does not realize perfect objective self-consciousness until 
conscious of the perfect harmonization with itself of the 
dependent persons who are its objects. This conscious- 
ness of their perfect harmonization must include the 
consciousness of their fullest freedom and self-deter- 
mined security. The perfect universe, perfect in kind, 
is thus opened to the practical altruistic freedom of 
divine love. 

The quahties and powers which are capable of endless 
progress are implicit in the universe of dependent per- 
sons, now perfect in their harmony, freedom, and security, 
and constitute but the unembarrassed opportunity for 
that good which it is the purpose of love to bestow. 
Creation, whatever may have been the method of its 
process, even though incalculable periods of the Crea- 
tor's objective activity may have preceded a period of 
fire-mist which scientists suppose, only evinces how deep 
and wide this foundation is laid. This perfect universe, 
perfect in self-determined harmony, freedom, and secu- 
rity, is the completed foundation which intimates how 
massive is the superstructure of good which love purposes 
to build thereupon. 

" The good of being " has a composite meaning. 
What it comprehends we cannot tell. We only use the 



CREATION. 141 

term "good " to express what is of real interest, benefit, 
value, satisfaction. It is the being or possessing that 
which gives value to one's self. Hence it may be in- 
creased or diminished in finite beings. Of the abso- 
lutely perfect Being we say he is the infinite good ; and 
the communion or harmony of finite beings with him 
yields to them their supreme good. It does this be- 
cause it exalts them to their highest realization of them- 
selves and their highest appreciation of all others, and 
hence gives to their existence its greatest value. Hence 
it is true that 'Move is its own reward," the supreme 
good. But since love is perfect action, the infinite re- 
source, its evolution imphes limitless development of 
good. To finite beings who are secure in their amplest 
freedom and harmony, there opens up an endless pro- 
gress in the experience of good. 

Harmony, freedom, and security are thus the imme- 
diate conditions to the highest conditioned good. Upon 
the natural conditions which the Creator's action posits, 
dependent persons determine these as characteristics of 
a perfect universe. These self-determined character- 
istics of a universe thus perfected in kind become con- 
ditions upon which the universe is elaborated in degree. 
The perfection of creation, or nature, is in the affording 
the primary conditions upon which these characteristics 
can be determined by finite persons. The perfection 
of the universe consists in the adequacy of these self- 
determined characteristics to condition the unalloyed 
and largest good of dependent being. 

That they are adequate conditions readily appears. 
Harmony implies the perfect interaction of dependent 
persons with their own natures, and perfect harmony of 
action with each other and with their environment. 



1^2 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, 

Since love is the nature of the Creator's action, loving 
reciprocation of that action by dependent persons, in 
common, renders their relations to God and each other 
entirely holy and beneficent. With love as the all-con- 
ditioning and co-ordinating action, dependent persons 
interact and thus harmonize each with all. Perfectly 
harmonious interaction of dependent with independent 
must be able to realize the highest and most real good 
of which a dependent universe can be thought capable. 
Harmonious personal adjustment, carried forward with- 
out interruption, either by error or wilful disharmony, is 
the only thinkable basis upon which dependent persons 
can realize their highest good as individuals and univer- 
sally. The creative nature being the common condi- 
tioning ground, their perfect adjustment to it must assure 
that good which is its grand creative purpose. 

Moreover, this harmony secures the right of self-love, 
individual devotion to ideal selfhood in all. Pure self- 
love implies the perfection of each for the perfection of 
all. Love, devotion to realizing the ideal, enacting the 
perfect, being the law of universal adjustment, carries 
with it that devotion to the ideal self which is self-love. 
Hence, love, dominating all personal interaction, implies 
the harmonization of all individual self-love. Love, as 
self-love, is able to attain its highest good, not only 
because it actualizes its ideal self, but because its ideal 
self actualized is its best practical self. This actual- 
ized ideal or perfect self is an egoism which affords the 
largest altruistic freedom, is capable of the greatest 
objective unselfishness. This is to say that one's best 
self is his best, not only for himself, but for all others ; 
and that self-love, which is devotement to one's best 
self, is at one with all love, not only in that it seeks to 



CREATION. 142 

realize ideal being in one's self, but in that it is one 
with unselfishness toward others. That perfectly har- 
monious interaction of dependent and independent 
being must condition the highest good is evinced by 
this implication of love, namely, that the highest good 
of any dependent being is attained only in harmony 
with the highest good of all being. 

Again, if this universal harmony have in it the con- 
sciousness of the largest freedom possible to dependent 
persons, and also the consciousness of perfect moral 
security, the conditions to the highest good must be 
thought complete. 

What purpose or purposes, what definite activities 
may give form to the highest good, it is not ours to affirm, 
but we may be sure that love to God, that the pursuit 
of communion with and deeper knowledge of God, will 
be the grand devotement of all who would realize the 
supreme good. No matter how high or low may be the 
nature of finite persons, the actual perfection of God 
must always and to all alike be the infinite ideal to 
which they may be forever supremely devoted, which 
they may forever commune with and be assimilated to, 
and which will ever be the supreme moral criterion in 
the faith, hope, and love of the universe, — the reality 
and glory of all its exploitation and achievement. This 
devotement to the infinite ideal is the love which, in 
finite persons, includes devotion to an ideal self, realizing 
pure self-love, and is devotion to the true in all things. 
Devotion to the infinite ideal reacts in their characters 
and expresses itself in their activities, and realizes the 
supreme good of dependent persons. This companion- 
ship with the infinite affords the further objective deter- 
mination of divine love, and is the grand purpose of 
creation. 



1^4 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

A progressive universe, only, can achieve these three 
grand characteristics which condition the highest good. 
Perhaps it may be urged that perfect intelligence should 
preclude disharmony ; and that God might create de- 
pendent beings with such perfect intuitions and vast 
susceptibilities and powers that they could grasp at 
once the entire finite conception and full significance 
of divine love, and reciprocate that love in the full 
measure of dependent being. Some such creation is 
what certain sensational philosophers, such as Mr. John 
Stuart Mill, argued is necessary to prove from the world 
that it is the work of a perfect Creator. Persons, it is 
supposed, who are created in such perfection of powers 
might avoid all error in the exercise of their freedom. 
Created with the highest finite ability to know and do, 
they could avoid all error, and in the fullest detail 
accomplish the highest harmonies of being. 

All this is very fine for the imagination, but has 
nothing for the reason. In the first place, it assumes 
an insight into '' how being is made ; " a question 
totally beyond the scrutiny of human thought. It 
assumes also that the personal character, or what is 
the same, the quahties of personal action of one person 
can be determined by another, which, as we have seen, 
is a contradiction. That a being of perfect finite nature 
can be created, we do not deny, but personal character, 
the quality of personal action, is self-determined. 

Although we may not deny that persons may be 
created with perfect perceptions of their entire con- 
dition and relation, so as to be free from error, and 
with the largest freedom to act accordingly, affording 
the greatest natural facility to continue in harmony 
with these conditions, yet it cannot be affirmed that 



CREATION. 14^ 

these persons cannot or will not selfishly choose to 
enjoy the pleasures and powers of their actual selves 
rather than continue in supreme devotion to the ideal. 
Such an affirmation is made upon the assumption that 
perfect intelligence which will preclude error will also 
preclude wilful wrong ; that there can be no such thing 
as an entirely wilful wrong. This is not a merely mod- 
ern assertion, but it is just as absurd, hoary as it is, as 
any new-born fallacy. A person of perfect finite nature 
cannot choose to enjoy his actual powers rather than de- 
vote them to loving and serving the infinite, forsooth ! 

But though this is a groundless assumption, the fact 
must always remain that even to a person created with 
the highest conditioned powers there must be unex- 
plored, perhaps ever inscrutable mysteries in the abso- 
lute perfect. Finite thought finds no parallax between 
the humblest and mightiest conditioned powers with 
which to measure the distance to the unconditioned 
One to whom they turn in spiritual devotement. The 
question is, can the one be created more steadfast in 
his devotion than the other? The field for faith must 
ever abide. Will the highest created intelligence make 
that faith more steadfast? The greatest finite pow- 
ers may be proportionately as great a temptation to 
their selfish use as the lowly capabihties of the hum- 
blest person. The pleasure and ambition incident to 
the selfish enjoyment of these lofty natures cannot be 
thought less, in proportion, than those of lower types of 
being. Not less, but perhaps more probable is it that 
they would choose the splendid gratification of the 
actual self rather than devotion to the ideal infinite. 

Still, it may be argued that in their perfect percep- 
tion of their entire relationship they must be thought 



146 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



incapable of error as to the complete advantage of right 
and the disastrous result of wrong. For them to abide 
in harmony is to enjoy clearly perceived good, and to 
avoid self-evident ruin. This reduces their motives to 
those of merely hope and fear ; and not one such per- 
son can be conscious of security in devotion to the 
right, were this knowledge of results removed. Their 
security is the security of circumstances. Yet self- 
determined superiority to circumstances is the exact 
measure of perfect personal security ; and it is essential 
to complete consciousness of personal freedom and har- 
mony. These requisites of a perfect universe and essen- 
tial conditions to the highest conditioned good must be 
self-determined ; and finite self-determination x-?. progress. 

Self-determination of superiority to circumstances, 
superiority to motives of hope and fear, cannot be 
thought possible to conditioned beings except as de- 
votion to right. Rising superior to experienced good 
for the sake of higher communion with infinite per- 
fection is the exercise of faith, — an exercise which 
confirms the love and gives higher determination to per- 
sonality. Love toward a perfect God, whose infinite 
perfection is believed in, and that risks the interests 
of self-love as incident thereto, is a self-determination 
above known circumstances and superior to known 
satisfactions. Upon this faith in God, as the uncon- 
ditioned perfect, the conditioned person determines 
the secure steadfastness of his love as devotion to 
the perfect, conditioned and unconditioned. 

But where all that a conditioned mind can ever grasp 
or commune with is openly and at once perceived the 
only conceivable scope for faith would be for him to break 
away from the pleasurable spontaneities of his circum- 



CREATION. j^j 

Stances, and for the sake of determining a conscious 
superiority to them, plunge into certain ruin. Thus the 
highest realization of conditioned personahty could be 
reached only through disaster. From this " bad emi- 
nence " a devil thus self-determined might truly say — 

" that strife 
Was not inglorious, though the event was dire." 

Nor could this supposedly perfect universe of happy 
utilitarians ever parry his grim sarcasm, " Doth Job 
serve God for naught?" 

In a word : i. The creation of an unconditioned 
person or universe is not possible to thought. 2. The 
creation of a perfect conditioned person or universe 
would be the creation of perfectly self-determined char- 
acter ; which is a contradiction. 3. The creation of a 
person or universe in the highest conditioned perfection 
implies that they cannot determine themselves as any- 
thing other than their nature, except worse ; implies 
that the danger of the abuse of their freedom is can- 
celled by their perfect perception of good and ill results. 
4. This, again, reduces the universe to one in which 
fear and reward are the highest motives ; hence not one 
of love. In such a universe love can exist only as 
following an instinct or spontaneity, not as supreme, 
self-determined devotement. To thus choose to drift 
spontaneously with their nature has no security except 
devotion to actual self, selfishness. 

It might protect against mere error in judgment but 
evinces no security against dehberate choice to abuse 
power or privilege. There is nothing to indicate that 
the choice to pass from pure self-love to selfishness is 
not immanent and easy in the highest as in the lowest 



1^8 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

finite person ; and this is the passing from harmony to 
disharm.ony. No matter how nearly infinite finite per- 
sons might be created, their fi-ee choice to love or refuse 
to love God and each other, to use or abuse their powers, 
is nevertheless an essential condition upon which the 
harmony of the universe depends. Nothing can protect 
the Creator's purpose, the highest bestowal of the good 
of being, from utter defeat if they so will 

Since there is no ground upon which it may be affirmed 
that a self-determining person or universe created at the 
highest possible point in intelHgence and power would 
be secure against disharmony, it must be admitted that 
such cannot be thought the perfect creation ; cannot 
condition a perfect universe. 

Moreover, it must be admitted that disharmony 
upon such conditions must be complete disaster. To 
sin in the light of the highest possible finite intelli- 
gence leaves no motive upon which the sinner could 
be recovered. Hence there is nothing to prevent 
the utter defeat and overthrow of the object of creation. 
Their sinning in the midst of the highest finite intelli- 
gence and motivity exhausts all susceptibility to incen- 
tives which might induce their recovery ; and must leave 
them incapable of honest repentance or gracious restor- 
ation. Absolutely nothing remains by which the utter 
disintegration of the personal universe can be averted 
save force and fear ; and this, as we have seen, would 
be an utter failure of the purpose of love's objective 
determination. 

To destroy the erring or sinning one by exercise of 
power in any way would make fear of destruction the 
highest motive to righteousness among all finite persons ; 
would make personal safety the highest good. It is 



CREATION. jAg 

needless to argue how impossible it is to instigate love in 
any high degree by fear, but it is perfectly clear that a 
universe in which hope and fear are the highest motives 
can never realize an ideal universe. Under such 
motives perfect finite personality cannot be attained. 
Though created in the highest finite perfection of knowl- 
edge and power it would not be a perfect universe the 
moment its security consciously depends upon hope and 
fear as its highest motives. Love could not appear as 
self-sufficient, as able to realize its objective ideal or 
achieve perfect beneficence ; hence not as the nature of 
perfect being. Moreover, the suspicion that selfishness 
may be capable of greater power and pleasure than love, 
that it is the chief good, would haunt the universe for- 
ever, — a suspicion which God would appear unable to 
meet, and love unable to settle. Is love the nature of the 
independent, unconditioned, perfect being? Is God 
the best God that might be? Is a love-determined 
universe the best universe ? Is the moral authority which 
his love imposes a reality ? Does it rightfully dominate 
conscience ? May not both the obedient and disobe- 
dient despise him whom only might " hath made 
greater"? These are the questions which dwell in the 
bosom of that suspicion, which, unanswered, must eat 
out the moral fibre of the universe. 

But a perfect creation, by love, must not only condi- 
tion a perfect universe, but must imply in case of dis- 
harmony t/ie least possible suffering of calamitous 
results ; hence we must affirm that — 

The lowest point of intelligence and power at which 
moral action can arise is that at which dependent per- 
sonality should originate. This, in order (i) that their 
disharmonies may have the minimum of ill-result, — 



I^O THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

capable of inflicting the least possible harm upon them- 
selves or each other j (2) that they may have the 
largest susceptibility to corrective conditions and the 
widest field for remedial motives. 

At this lowest point of intelligence and power their 
errors and moral antagonisms are less potent to inflict 
woe upon themselves or the world. Their experience of 
the ills of disharmony will thus find them in the con- 
ditions most susceptible to its corrective tendency. 
The regretful experience of its pains and disadvantages 
becomes the opportunity for higher motives, and thus 
the largest scope for moral recuperation and remedial 
measures is secured. But were persons created at the 
highest stage of finite intelhgence and power, the pro- 
bability of disharmony would be as great, if not greater. 
If they choose disharmony their power, for evil, is the 
maximum while the highest incitements to harmony will 
have been exhausted. No remedy remains but punish- 
ment of the offenders, no higher motive to the unoffending 
than fear, and that in its most selfish form. The highest 
created heaven of such beings could become at any 
time an irretrievable hell. 

Since, then, a perfect universe is one which cannot be 
created perfect nor forced into perfection, but must be 
self-determined and therefore must be progressive, the 
created conditions upon which it is determined must be 
regarded perfect in that they afford the minimum of ill 
and the maximum of good which are incident to the 
process. The perfection of creation is in its affording 
conditions upon which a perfect universe can be evolved 
from the lowest stage, in order that every irreparable ill 
may be avoided, every abuse corrected, every wound 
healed, every error eliminated, and every disharmony 



CREATION. lei 

remedied by rising to higher harmonies. All this is 
implied in love, ever evolving its conditioning activities 
along the lines of holiness and benevolence. 

The divine benevolence can find complete deter- 
mination only in a progressive creation which founds 
dependent personality at the lowest degree of intelli- 
gence and power at which personahty can arise. Although 
the errors of dependent persons in such a deep vale of 
ignorance and weakness may be many and great, those 
errors are schools of instruction in the experience 
of the bad tendency of wrong and the excellence of 
right. This, too, with little or no guilt on the part of 
the erring. 

Moreover, their experience thus gained is the greatest 
possible in proportion to their intelligence in other 
respects. Thus their innocently gained knowledge of 
the merit of right and the demerit of wrong is the great- 
est possible to their stage of development ; and by so 
much are they proportionately better armed against the 
liability to intentional wrong than if created in the 
full-orbed powers of finite being. 

Further, in the event of their committing intentional 
wrong they experience in this lowly state a correspond- 
ingly low degree of guilt. The turpitude of their sin is 
the minimum of moral evil which may result from 
wrong intention ; and the depraving influence which 
such guilt may impose upon the general character is 
the least possible. 

Added to these considerations, it is evident the 
power to /iar?n each other must be of the lowest practi- 
cable degree. It must have the least subtlety to beguile, 
the least skill to injure, the least efficiency to dominate 
the actions and interests of others. It may, indeed. 



1^2 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

have more of the crude violence of the brute, but must 
have far less of the malignant finesse of the fiend. 

The susceptibility to recovery by renouncing wrong 
as such, and the devotement to right under these 
circumstances is the greatest possible. Such recovery 
comes to the erring or sinning when they have sustained 
relatively the slightest degree of damage to their 
natures, and when there is before them, relatively, the 
largest term of discipline and development in which to 
become confirmed in devotion to right, to undo the 
damage of past wrong and develop the greatest degree 
of adaptation and habit in righteous being. True, the 
process is beset with great ignorance and attended by 
many failures and lapses, but the will is sovereign and 
efficient in the moral intentions of the most ignorant as 
well as in those of the most enlightened of finite 
persons. The mistake, the lapse, the fall, occurring 
within the arms of that benevolence which provides that 
it shall take place in the simpler and least harmful con- 
ditions, encourages to righteous endeavor and affords 
corrective wisdom. 

Ignorance and weakness, from the above considerations 
stand out as important conditions which love imposes as 
essential to the determination of perfect finite person- 
ahty. By means of error the moral disciphne gained is 
immeasurably greater, in proportion to the degree of 
intelligence and power, in a person who has been 
progressively developed to a high stage of capability 
than it can possibly be in one who is created at once at 
the same altitude of natural powers. Though he be 
weak and ignorant as a peasant, he may love with the 
sincerity of a seraph. This preponderance of the moral 
over the natural personality facilitates the spiritual de- 



CREATION. J ^3 

termination of the person vastly in advance of his 
formulated knowledge ; and by so much is his arrival at 
the point of moral security in advance of the attainment 
of his largest scope for freedom ; and by so much less 
is the harmony of the world menaced by personal 
freedom. Acids, razors, and engines, in the hands ot 
infants are weapons of destruction, but in the hands of 
the skilled and strong are instruments of utihty. So, 
also, great intelligence and power, in the hands of 
infantile moral development, would be weapons of 
destruction, but in the hands of securely self-determined 
love are instruments of good. Hence, the greatest 
preponderance of devotion to the good over capability 
for evil is gained by a person or universe created in the 
lowest conditions possible to moral development. 

Moreover, the corrective discipline of error by its 
pains and inconveniences which result from collision 
with all-conditioning love, must tend to dissuade from 
intentional wrong-doing, deter the rise of sin. And 
should intentional sin arise, its self-defeat is facilitated 
by its blundering incoherence when ignorantly or feebly 
perpetrated. 

Thus ignorance and error have a mission in the 
natural world, affording the conditions to the earhest 
realization of the harmony, highest freedom, and security 
which must characterize the perfect universe. Not only 
is it true that " to err is human," but to err is natural. 
" For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its 
own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope 
that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of 
the children of God." 

This is the true ^'bitter-sweet" doctrine. It differs 



154 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



from the doctrine, so-called, which includes sin, inten- 
tional wrong, as natural. Sin is thus made a necessity 
to the universe, and God is under obligations to it for 
the realization of his purposes. This we repudiate 
wholly as having no foundation or natural place in the 
evolution of love. Sin is unnatural, and must be dis- 
posed of as such. But error is naturally incident to the 
dependent objects of love's evolution, which conditions 
the rise of moral consciousness at the lowest possible 
stage of personal intelligence and power. This is the 
only sense in which there is a divinely authorized '•' min- 
istry " of ignorance, weakness, and pain j and this is the 
sense in which ignorance, and feebleness of mind and 
body, and an environment of hardship are imposed by 
creative perfection, as conditions to the development of 
perfect finite personahty. 

The greatest of innocent errors is the hope of finding 
a permanent finite ideal ; the pursuing a finite ideal, ex- 
pecting it to be a satisfying perfect in kind and degree 
when once realized. 'Whether it be a babe, weary of its 
rattle-box but supremely devoted to a newly possessed 
hobby-horse, or a millionnaire devoted to the acquisition 
of additional millions, the story is the same. The con- 
quest of the world, realized, is not the ideal for wliich 
the conqueror weeps. '' We gather shells from youth 
to age ; and then we leave them, like a child." The 
worn-out pleasure seeker is puzzled to understand how 
it was that he could ever have pursued with such intense 
ardor the objects for which now he has only satiety 
and loathing. The secret is simply this in every case : 
his love sought satisfaction in only finite ideals. 

But even this greatest of errors has its mission. The 
cloying sweets, the weariness of toys, the disappoint- 



CREATION. ICC 

merit of wealth, pain, and pleasure, teach that " One is 
good, that is God." There is One perfect, — the actual- 
ized, infinite ideal. This alone can afford the absolute 
authority of the ideal, and hold by its infinite charm and 
motives a steadfastly progressive, eternal devotement of 
a free universe. " Love is its own reward," and to in- 
teract in progressive companionship by supreme devo- 
tion to the unconditioned perfect, can alone be to finite 
persons their supreme good. 

To attain to freely self-determined security in con- 
scious harmony with him is to achieve, incidentally, an 
ideal selfhood, which is the goal of a pure self-love. But 
we can affirm it is an actualized ideal self in kind only. 
It realizes unwavering security in the largest scope of 
finite freedom ; but is just now wholly fitted to achieve 
the unqualified good of progressive companionship with 
God. 

Naturally irretrievable wrong can only be in the case 
of those persons who cling to error, though conscious of 
its erroneous nature. To correct the supreme wrong of 
supreme devotion to finite objects, when its erroneous- 
ness is disclosed, is to restrict it to the category of inno- 
cent error, which does no violence to the person's essen- 
tial adjustment to the Creator's purpose. But to indulge 
the practice of wrong for the enjoyment of its temporary 
interest is to do intentional wrong, is to break with the 
natural harmony, and pervert all his natural conditions 
by self-determined devotion to his actual self. This is 
selfishness, the antagonist of love. A machine in which 
all the centres of motion are in true adjustment is essen- 
tially harmonious, and will eventually wear down and 
smooth off the rough and uneven surfaces and edges of 
cogs and pulleys, and finally wear to perfect and perma- 



IS6 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



nent harmony. So, also, supreme love to God and 
mutual love among themselves is the true adjustment of 
dependent persons which constitutes the essential har- 
mony of the world. If this harmony is maintained, the 
errors and misfortunes incident to a weak and ignorant 
world are superficial inequahties and rough edges of 
conditioned life which will be eventually worn away, and 
their ill results neutralized by the harmonious tendency 
of love's adjustments. Thus the creation perfectly con- 
ditions dependent persons in essential harmony, which, 
if maintained, will constantly develop more intimate 
and elaborate harmony with God's perfect action, and 
ultimately realize security in the perfection of universal 
personal adjustment of finite with infinite being. 

The chief difference between the machine and the 
universe is that adjustment in one is maintained by its 
maker, while in the personal universe the essential ad- 
justment is only conditioned by the Creator, but is de- 
termined for himself by each dependent person. Because 
of this self-determination in each person the superficial 
inequalities and errors resulting from ignorance and 
weakness are not the only disturbances to which the 
world is liable. 

The Preternatural. — We use the term simply in the 
sense of " aside from natural," or perverted nature. 
The power of finite persons to change their adjustment 
toward God and toward their fellow-men, and abuse and 
pervert their own natures and natural relations, enables 
them to render the entire scheme of their conditions 
unnatural. Fire affords conditions to comfort, health, 
manufacture, commerce, and v/ealth, but if abused affords 
the most horrible conditions of disaster and torture. So 
the Creator's love affords the conditions to the deter- 



CREATION. jry 

mination of the greatest good, but if abused, perverted 
by maladjustment, these conditions may be made vast, 
organized forces for evil. But the change is not in 
divine love, the action which posits natural conditions. 
Natural conditions are modified by the false self-adjust- 
ment of dependent persons. Hence, if restoration to 
the natural is ever achieved by such persons, it must be 
by their changing their attitude to one of true harmony 
with the creation. 

By self-perversion dependent persons may organize 
illusions which obscure their consciousness of the cardi- 
nal facts contained in their conditions, although disaster 
and defeat frequently recall them to a sense of these 
facts. They may curse nature and fight natural law, but 
natural forces will keep right on, maintaining the fact of 
the Creator's independence. Neither can they always 
avert their attention from the fact, conscience, the au- 
thority of the perfect which morally conditions their 
intentions, until, " in their thoughts, they accuse each 
other " according to this criterion. But because of their 
self-determining freedom it must be thought possible for 
them to so pervert and debase their personahty as to 
become unsusceptible to the beneficent motivity of love 
as expressed in the natural world. 

So elaborately organized, complex, and fascinating 
may selfish forms of pleasure, culture, and enterprise 
become as to mislead or beguile sincere minds for in- 
definite periods of time. The wilful wrong of one age 
may become the conventional habit of succeeding ages, 
and the selfish excesses of one generation mould the 
natural instincts or establish the tastes of their descend- 
ants. The universal prevalence of selfish desire and 
practice may establish a general devotion to actual self, 



158 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



which, in its most alleviating forms of utilitarianism, may 
hopelessly displace all faith in the ideal, and discard all 
devotion to abstract truth as visionary and fanatical. 
Utilitarianism in every form may, within the benevolent 
forbearance of love's natural conditions, systematize alle- 
viations to this riot of selfishness. It may boast of this as 
chief good, forgetting or ignoring that all its benignities 
are owing to the benevolence of the Creator, and its 
garnished thrift of readjusted selfishness is only tolerable 
because it is permitted to nestle in the bosom of love's 
forbearance. Thus dependent persons may condition 
themselves by modifying their natural susceptibilities 
and external conditions, totally obscuring all incitement 
or motivity to loving devotion to the perfect. 

If this obscuration of susceptibility and incitement to 
the ideal fail to become total, it must be because the 
rational demand for the Independent, — the actual ex- 
perience of dependence and the authority of the perfect 
in conscience, — assert themselves more or less in the 
midst of all finite perversion and sham. Their essential 
dependence upon the Independent, demonstrated ever 
and anon in the self-defeat of selfishness, ever reminds 
dependent persons of the self-sustained independence of 
natural forces. Likewise the persistent authority of the 
holy, the perfect, can never be bribed to approve wrong 
intention in the personal conscience. But in personal 
self-determination there may be the entire perversion of 
all perception of the real good, and total obliteration of 
its motivity to incite love toward the Creator. Moreover, 
the prosperity of selfishness must tend to establish a 
sincere conviction that the Independent is indifferent to 
good or evil, and that perfection is but a chimera, while 
the bitterness of conditions, as perverted by selfishness, 



CREATION. 1^9 

tends to obscure the benevolence of the Creator and 
even suggest a questioning of his existence. 

Human history illustrates these imphcations of pos- 
sible distortion and defeat of natural conditions by self- 
determined devotion to actual self, or selfishness. When 
devotement to actual self is thus determined upon, all 
the natural methods of divine love's interpretation are 
refracted like light when passing through a dense 
medium. Not only the secret feelings of individuals, 
but often the philosophies, enterprises, and collective 
sentiment of mankind evince their perversion. Their 
desire for God is only a desire for an almighty con- 
venience, and when this convenience is not apparent 
their faith in the benevolence, or even existence, of God 
is shaken. 

Selfishness demands that divine action shall give up 
its ideal, and devote its energies to mere alms-giving to 
man as he actually is, — claims that to bless himself as 
he actually is is man's first right, and to extort benefits 
from his fellow-men is a proper use of his intelligence 
and power. This is human welfare as viewed by the 
philosophies of selfishness. Hence they complain that 
human hfe is " the worst possible " because of the dis- 
comforts experienced by actual self. The perfection of 
self, toward which love conditions all human striving, 
and to achieve which any sacrifice it demands of actual 
self is small, is ignored. Since the evolution of divine 
love conditions all persons with reference to their sub- 
jecting the actual to the ideal, the friction and hardship 
which come to man by his misappropriating his condi- 
tions are beyond computation. The spleen of a Cain is 
nothing but devotion to the actual self which will recog- 
nize God only as a servitor to selfishness. Idolatry is 



l6o THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

but the apotheosis of actual, imperfect self. Its gods are 
merely large men as men actually are, not as they might 
and ought to become by devotement to that ideal man- 
hood which is authorized by the actual perfection of the 
unconditioned Person, God. 

Pessimists think this the worst possible world because 
the satisfaction of their present actual self is their crite- 
rion of good ; and because our natural conditions are 
not favorable to selfish satisfaction. The atheist insists 
that if the w^orld were the creation of a perfect being, 
it and our race would have been created in the highest 
finite perfection ; and hence would be perfectly happy. 
In his view actual being of any type is the criterion of 
what is, or ought to be, good. All these views are 
from the standpoint of selfishness, which only wishes to 
place the actual, imperfect self in a position where it 
may be wholly a recipient, and but selfishly a factor, of 
beneficence. In a word, they ignore the need of a 
progressive actualization of the ideal in order that per- 
sonal perfection may be actually attained and forever 
secured. They fail to recognize that neither power, 
knowledge, nor pleasure, but love, is the nature of per- 
fect action, and alone can yield a perfect universe. 

Because love is love and is capable of mercy it has 
conditioned the continuance of our selfish race. Nay, 
more, these conditions of mercy in which sin is per- 
mitted to make a full demonstration of itself, — con- 
ditions which can correct, discipline, and recover the 
sinner, — these conditions afi"ord at least temporary 
prosperity to sin and success to selfishness. Nothing in 
our world, it is true, seems more successful than selfish- 
ness, nothing more jubilant and arrogant than the 
triumphs of selfish devotement. On this account the 



CREATION. l6l 

benevolence of divine love becomes the pj'ivilege of 
sin. Benevolence is made, by man, to abet selfishness. 
Love becomes the servant of its enemy, and its activi- 
ties are used as the instruments of his crimes. Not 
only does it afford scope for sin's continuance, but en- 
courages it. That " the goodness of God leadeth to 
repentance " is overlooked. It tends to establish the 
conviction in the race that the creation is indifferent, 
perhaps favorable to selfishness. Thus the determina- 
tion of the Creator's benevolence conditions, for a period, 
at least, the prosperity of the wicked. Nothing but 
faith in God prevents the best men from conceding the 
triumph of selfishness. How often in the history of 
man have thoughtful persons expressed their despair 
of the ultimate triumph of right, how often deplored 
the triumph of wrong, — " right ever on the scaffold, 
wrong ever on the throne ! " 

Supernatural intervention is here irresistibly forced 
upon us as an imphcation of conditioning love. It is here 
that we are compelled to recognize that in order to 
condition the realization of a perfect universe, love 
must evolve other and further than natural incitements 
to devotion to the perfect. If the finite universe or 
any person or portion of it is preternaturally condi- 
tioned by the general defection, so as to be destitute of 
the means which naturally lead to devotion to the per- 
fect, there is no recourse but supernatural means. The 
least and lowest form of action which love can take is 
to be just. But justice would require that the Creator 
must in this juncture cease to tolerate the existence 
of persons where they maintain these preternatural 
conditions ; or else he must supplement the perverted, 
and hence inefficient natural, with supernatural condi- 



1 62 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

tions to ultimate harmony. Love must end them in 
some way when conditions become so entirely preter- 
natural as to collide with the independence, obscure 
the moral authority and pervert the benevolence of 
God. Either, in justice, love must permit the preter- 
natural conditions which finite wickedness and weak- 
ness have estabhshed to work its own immediate 
destruction ; or, in mercy, it must reassert and maintain 
the natural conditions to perfection by supernatural 
intervention. The former would be a surrender of the 
object of creation ; the latter would be directly in the 
line of love's evolution of a perfect universe. 

It is easy to see what divine love will do. The whole 
matter may be stated in a sentence, to wit : the natural 
conditions of dependent persons, which express to them 
the independence, moral authority, and benevolent pur- 
pose of the Creator, are superseded by preternatural 
conditions which these persons, by their self-determined 
pen^ersity, have interposed ; and which may justly be 
permitted to condition their self-destruction ; and which 
can be avoided only by a merciful supernatural dis- 
closure, which will make good to them the original 
conditions to the determination of their perfection. 

It is not indeed a question of what love can do, but 
what love as objective determination 7?iust aftd will do. 
When the free abuses of dependent persons construct 
in them a false nature, and around them a false environ- 
ment, love must maintain the conditions to finite per- 
fection by transcending nature. Were our philosophy 
of creative or natural forces merely one of impersonal 
dynamics we should be puzzled, indeed, to find a basis 
for the supernatural. But as "^ creative force " stands 
in our thought for the action of an independent person 



CREA TION. 



163 



whose nature is love, we have no such puzzle on our 
hands. We simply inquire, What must divine action, 
in devotement to perfect being, do? When human 
perversity misappropriates the benevolence of love by 
making it the occasion for selfishness ; and prosperous 
selfishness encourages the conviction that the creation 
is favorable, or at least indifferent to it ; or resulting 
adversity begets despair, what manifestation does the 
evolution of love imply. This is the whole question ; 
and there can be but one reply : The supernatural ! 

Does this argue, after all, that the creation of depend- 
ent persons at the lowest point of intelligence and power 
at which self-determination may arise is imperfect? By 
no means. The impairment of their natural conditions 
is not the impairment of the divine action in nature, but 
their self-determined abuse of the divine action. As ob- 
served before, their freedom is the only menace to 
essential harmony, and, at first glance, might seem a 
defect in the creation, but is, in fact, an excellence, — 
the grand excellence which constitutes them persons, 
distinguishes the objective universe, and renders possi- 
ble the eternal companionship of finite and infinite 
being. The perfection of creation stands out, also, in 
that it is the basis upon which dependent persons, 
through a schooling of weakness and innocent error, 
may avoid sin, intentional wrong, and determine their 
perpetual harmony, largest freedom, and perfect secur- 
ity. For aught we know, our own race furnishes the 
only class of persons who have failed on that basis ; and 
possibly more of them than we are aware of have main- 
tained or recovered essential harmony without definite 
intelligence of supernatural motives ; that is, by renun- 
ciation of selfishness. 



164 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



Further, by its lowest conditions of personal self- 
determination it affords the whole determination and 
defeat of disharmony, caused by either error or design, 
at the lowest stage of its power to inflict evil on the 
world. The earlier demonstration of evil affords the 
earlier intervention of the supernatural. This also 
affords, in the case of the wilful sinner, the greatest 
opportunity that wrong-doing may, either in natural 
or supernatural conditions, prove self-corrective and 
not retributive. The possible determination of stead- 
fast love toward God is at the earliest, and possible 
incorrigibility at the latest stage of personal develop- 
ment. 

That this supernatural intervention, as seen above, 
has an object altogether worthy of it needs no argument. 

If the question of the form of supernatural disclosure 
is raised, by way of objection to miracles, for example, 
then we must make the following affirmations : (i) the 
only respect in which we can affirm that the activities of 
God in nature cannot be changed is in their essential 
character as conditioning the free determination of 
human perfection, by evincing the independence, the 
perfect moral authority, and the changeless hoHness and 
mercy of God ; (2) any supposable revealment of super- 
natural motives must reiterate or accord with these ; 
(3) the phenomenal form in which it may vary from 
the natural order of phenomena, as perceived by those 
to whom it is given, does no violence to nature, but dis- 
tinguishes it as supernatural. This is merely a question 
of method and adaptation to the persons addressed ; and 
disbelief in miracles, regarded as mere departures from 
the usual phenomenal order of God's action in nature 
is but a quibble \ (4) if such departure reiterates and 



CREA TION. 



i6S 



emphasizes the essential conditions expressed in nature 
it hQdiYS prima facie evidence of its validity. 

In the conditions which divine love maintains in all 
its objective action, natural and supernatural, it makes 
good to the objects of its effort its own independence, 
its devotion to the perfect, its beneficence, or supreme 
good, and sacredly recognizes the self-determining free- 
dom of dependent persons. In these conditions it 
affords the means of their supreme devotion to the per- 
fect and their realization of companionship with God. 
Pressing forward to the realization of its objective ideal, 
the perfect universe, love must be thought as lengthening 
and widening its benevolence until its majestic ideal is 
realized. Its benevolent conditioning of progressive Hfe 
renders evil corrective, not necessarily retributive. If it 
shall ever become retributive it must be by the fixed de- 
termination of the wrong-doer, who, though convinced of 
the excellence of love and the despicable nature of 
selfishness, persists in his ill-chosen course. This he 
may do, notwithstanding infinite love ; and divine force 
cannot intervene to save him, nor to inflict upon him 
aught but his own self-determined perversion, his mal- 
adjustment to a love-conditioned world. This is but to 
say that love cannot be thought to reverse its own 
nature and all its evolution in order to avoid a collision 
which must be ruinous to the sinner who incorrigibly 
rejects or perverts its saving conditions. Incorrigi- 
ble determination in selfishness is not only the evi- 
dence of self-induced Hmitations of one's personality, 
but is the continued process of limitation, until per- 
sonality may be sunken into the limitations of a brute, 
fiend, or thing. This matter, however, is treated more 
fully in a later chapter. It is only noticed here as a 



1 66 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

corollary to the progressive achievement of a perfect 
universe. 

That an independent being determines himself as 
infinite love, and projects a universe which in its pro- 
gressive development settles every question, casts off 
every crudity, wears out every abuse, outlives all antag- 
onism, outgrows all but necessary conditions, and 
persists, composed of persons fitted by the highest con- 
ditioned self-determination to be the finite counterpart 
of infinite love ; that eternity shall be given to the unem- 
barrassed unfolding of love's resource of goodness, power, 
and glory, in the harmonies of the progressive finite 
with the perfect infinite, — is the only self-sustaining 
philosophy of the universe. 

The divine conception, or ideal, of conditioned being 
having been wrought by man's reciprocal action into 
the perfect self-consciousness of freedom, harmony, and 
security, God will doubtless continue his altruistic hfe, 
as " from the beginning," Creator, Upholder, Revealer, 
and Benefactor, without exhaustion of resource or arrest 
of finite progress. The structure and history of the uni- 
verse, physical, mental and moral, continually rounding 
into a synthesis of love, will continue to illustrate the 
infinite egoism and limitless altruistic freedom of God. 

Companionship is the term which perhaps best ex- 
presses these implications of love, — companionship of 
the finite with the infinite. This companionship, thus 
seen to be the bestowal of the highest conditioned good, 
is impHed as the purpose of the creation. Since com- 
panionship is the first form of relationship as subsisting 
between the absolute and the relative consciousness in 
God, it must be thought as underlying and conditioning 
all other relations which arise in the process of condi- 



CREA TION. 



167 



tioned existence. Hence this companionship is prime 
motive to finite minds, and must be the criterion by 
which to estimate the meaning and value of finite being. 
When we think of the infinite Person seeking to 
bestow an endlessly progressive companionship, we are 
hurried on to the conception of a universe of dependent 
persons, in endless variety of powers, who, sometime 
and somewhere, may know and enjoy God as nearly as 
friend does friend ; reflecting in relative detail the 
imaged phases of the divine nature. And as the love 
of finite persons, reciprocating that of the infinite, shall 
develop the being and doing of eternity, faithful in a few 
things or rulers over many, the splendors of love's evo- 
lution will vindicate the creation and prove to all that 
the greatest of blessings is BEING. 



1 68 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE GENESIS OF EVIL. 
An enemy hath done this, — Jesus. 

The preceding chapter closed with the thought of 
companionship — companionship of finite beings with 
the infinite Being — as the method of the supreme good, 
the purpose of creation, the realization of a perfect uni- 
verse. Instead of absorption of the finite by the infinite, 
which is the outcome of pantheism, we find ever-pro- 
gressive companionship with the infinite to be the out- 
come of the evolution of love. We recognize this as 
the divine conception, the divine ideal, of conditioned 
being, — God's finite ideal actualized by finite beings. 

We recognize that, upon the conditions which divine 
love evolves, dependent persons may attain a develop- 
ment which will be perfectly free, except in so far as 
their existence depends on God. This freedom will be 
a self-determining which is conscious of no restraint 
from without, but will be secure in the consciousness of 
perfect intention, holiness. Perfect intention, the holy 
quality of love, will assure the harmony of all. Perfect 
companionship implies perfect mutual confidence as to 
each other's intention. It can be perfectly self-con- 
scious only in freedom. Security in this free compan- 
ionship is the grand problem of free being, yet this 
security is essential to that companionship which realizes 
ideal being. The perfect personal universe, free as 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. 



169 



caprice, harmonious as unity, and secure as fate, is what 
we must recognize as essential in the ideal universe 
which love seeks to reaHze in its evolution. 

This ideal universe carried out practically will achieve 
the highest conditioned good. This good must be 
thought such that each person, individually, and all 
persons, universally, may make their being better upon 
the whole than non-being ; that their existence may be 
a positive blessing ; and that failure in this can come 
about only by their own determination. This is the 
lowest and least degree of good which can be thought 
in accordance with love as the nature of the force which 
has chosen to evolve the dependent world. Conscious 
that love is perfect action, God chooses to evolve from 
it the conditions upon which free, though dependent 
persons may determine dependent perfection in them- 
selves, and thereby determine a perfect universe. 

The teleological character of the world which love 
evolves is in this choice. It seeks the perfection of 
finite being as a requisite end. In this choice, also, is 
imphed the immortality of all persons who cannot find 
in a limited term of life the conditions upon which they 
can determine their perfection, and achieve that degree 
of good which such perfection can attain. Since perfect 
benevolence is love's motive for creation, and the bestow- 
ment of the highest good, perfect beneficence, is its 
purpose, it is clear that their realization is guaranteed in 
love as consciously perfect action ; guaranteed by its 
conscious ability to afford the highest conditionable good 
to dependent beings. 

As finite persons are self-determining, within their 
conditions, it follows that their highest good can be de- 
termined by their free conformity to those conditions of 



lyo THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

their being which love evolves. The faculties and sus- 
ceptibilities with which they are endowed and the envi- 
ronment in which they are placed constitute part of their 
conditions, and are means and instruments which creative 
love furnishes. These means and instruments have their 
use in achieving the excellence and satisfaction of their 
being, and hence are elements of their good. This use 
is in their true adjustment in interaction with the 
Creator. 

The benevolence of the Creator appears in the fact 
that the highest good of dependent persons results from 
a true use of these elements. If in this use their being 
prove better, more desirable, than non-existence, then 
their being is good. Further : if by ignorant misuse of 
themselves or of their environment they debase these con- 
ditions which love has posited, and yet may determine a 
life which upon the whole is better than non-being, then 
their being is a beneficence, a blessing. Yet again : if 
they or others by wilful abuse may pervert and deprave 
themselves and the general environment, and yet find 
it possible to determine a personal reform and ultimately 
find their way to a true use of their conditions to the 
extent that their being is upon the whole better than 
non-existence, then is their being a good so far as the 
Creator is responsible. And in so far as their existence 
in either of these cases is more desirable than non-exis- 
tence just so far does the graciousness of the creative 
choice transcend justice. 

If, on the other hand, finite persons should realize in 
their use of these elements an undesirable existence, 
worthless upon the whole to them, then their being is 
not a good. Or if it prove worse than worthless their 
being is a positive evil. Further : if by misuse of them- 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. lyi 

selves or their environment they realize that their life is 
not worth living, then is their being a positive evil. Hence 
evil is that practical result which would arise either 
through failure of a creator to condition good to finite 
persons or by their misuse of their conditions. 

But since love is the nature of that action which con- 
ditions the existence of finite persons, it implies that the 
true use of these conditions by them must result in their 
good. If, therefore, this good upon the whole is 
thwarted or prevented in any degree it must be by their 
determination, their free misuse, abuse, of their condi- 
tions. This practical result, which renders finite being a 
doubtful good, or even worse than non-being, is what, in 
the largest sense, we term evil. 

The questions which arise regarding evil are forced 
upon us by the experience of evil as an historical fact. 

But, aside from this fact, the evolution of love, in 
conditioning the existence of personal beings, consis- 
tently implies the liability of the abuse of those condi- 
tions by the free self-determination which constitutes 
them persons. Hence evil which must result from this 
abuse is a question which must be met. 

Up to this point in our outline the evolution of love 
has disclosed a Creator and creation that are wholly good. 
But now right across the path of this development there 
opens to our thought a chasm of wellnigh infinite terror ; 
and in both finite consciousness and human history 
arises the appalling fact of evil. 

This fact imposes two leading questions which demand 
solution. The first is : How does evil arise in a universe 
which originally is wholly good ? The second is : How 
are the difficulties which evil presents to be met and 
overcome by love, so as to realize perfect benevolence ; 



172 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



that is, SO as to accomplish a degree of good to finite 
beings, each and al], which is sufficient to justify the cre- 
ation ; even more, to actuahze an ideal universe ? More 
succinctly : How does love in its evolution proceed to 
determine perfect benevolence, notwithstanding evil? 
These questions make up " The Problem of Evil." The 
first which confronts us, then, in attempting the solution 
of this problem is — 

The genesis of evil. How can evil arise in a universe 
which is wholly good ? 

There is nowhere discernible an original germ or 
factor of evil in the divine nature or its evolution. 
There can be no evil in this world except by the dis- 
ordering of good elements ; and this disordering must 
come through the misadjustment of themselves to all- 
conditioning love, by dependent persons. The notion 
of a conflict of good and evil as eternal forces is a hoary 
myth. That evil is an " original principle " is a crude 
assumption. 

To define evil as being a free perversion of self-love, 
which disorders good elements by wrong adjustment 
of personal nature and relationship, resulting in dis- 
proportionate use, abuse, takes up all there is in the 
notion or knowledge of evil. This definition contains 
a full account of the genesis of evil in a universe 
which is originally good throughout. The whole con- 
flict betwixt good and evil is a question of right 
adjustment of persons, — within themselves, each, and 
among themselves, all, — and the resulting use or abuse 
of faculties and susceptibihties which are good in 
themselves. 

If we contemplate a person in process of devel- 
opment we must see in his conditions these phases 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. ly, 

of love's evolution ; we must see him as the imper- 
sonation, the personal enacting of these definitions : 
(i) Love is devotion to the realization of ideal being. 
(2) Self-love is devotion to the realization of an ideal 
self. (3) Ideal being is an imperative criterion for 
actual finite being. (4) Love's actualization of abso- 
lute perfection in the independent being, God, is the 
source of love's authority in the ideal as the criterion 
of dependent being. (5) Faith is that supreme con- 
fidence in love's ideal, the truth, which subjects the 
actual to the ideal in all self-determination. 

This impersonation, though finite, is an ego who is 
capable of entire benevolence, unselfishness. He is his 
best self in being his best for others. Losing his hfe he 
finds it. By intentional conformity to the ideal, he is 
holy. In practical conformity to his ideal he is wholly 
benevolent. 

History records one such man, at least, the man of 
Nazareth. His undeviating subjection of actual self, 
amidst boundless provocation to the contrary, was that 
perfect faith which operates by love ; the evidence of 
an all-dominating, though unseen ideal; the actualiza- 
tion of all that is " hoped for " in a pure self-love which, 
"for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, 
despising shame." Even if the world could be per- 
suaded that this record is mythical, its portrayal of these 
characteristics as the requisites of a perfect man, requi- 
site to a life which is wholly good, reflects the deepest 
convictions of human consciousness. The readiness 
with which sincere thought everywhere yields the first 
place to this man over all heroes, real or fictitious, is 
but the common acknowledgment that his was a truly 
adjusted life ; that if all dependent persons were like 



174 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



him in their self-adjustment, the universe would be 
wholly good. 

The law of universal adjustment is devotion to perfec- 
tion of being, the conformity of dependent persons to 
the independent. It is the principle which the Stoics 
dimly apprehended in their ''conformity to Nature." 
But when we recognize nature as the activities of divine 
love which constitute the conditions upon which de- 
pendent beings develop themselves, we recognize it 
as personal companionship of finite with the infinite, 
or independent. This is only stating that as law which 
is the spontaneity of love as action, — the actualizing of 
conditioned perfection in finite persons. The whole 
philosophy of being, as involved and evolved by love, 
is expressed in this law. Reality is action, action is 
life, perfectly adjusted life is love, and love is devotion 
to the realization of perfect being. The practical evo- 
lution of progressive being according to this law shows 
that self-love and love toward fellow-beings, and supreme 
love to God are subjectively one. They are identically 
devotion to perfection of being. 

Pure self-love, though necessarily the first develop- 
ment of love in a progressive being, eventually de- 
velops love to fellow-beings and to God. Hence 
it naturally evolves harmonious universal adjustment. 
This is to say that the harmony of the personal universe 
is not dependent upon a theoretic knowledge in each 
person of the relations of his being or of the nature of 
God, but depends upon the instinctive prompting of 
self-love. Universal harmony does not depend upon a 
high degree of intelHgence, but is spontaneously evolved 
by self-love. It spontaneously prompts a pure, though 
ignorant being to seek to realize his best self. 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. jyr 

The fact of conscious existence gives birth to self- 
love ; the fact of dependence upon others, and the fact 
of inter-dependence with others leads to the reciprocal 
adjustment of self-love ; and the fact of the dependence 
of all gives the sense of common dependence upon a 
common independent ; the fact of the independent is 
the fact of God. Dependence upon the implied fact, 
the independent, is the simplest form of faith ; and 
faith is the condition out of which love spontaneously 
arises. 

My experience of an abidingly interacting force in 
my physique, consciousness, sensation, perception, rea- 
son, feelings, and mioral sense gives me the constant 
basis upon which I achieve the claims and aspirations 
of self-love. Interacting with the activities thus given 
in my nature I develop a personal egoism in the direc- 
tion of self-love, and find by experience that they are, 
each and all, factors of good in me. Not only do I 
find a resulting good, but also a constantly enlarging 
conception of higher good than as yet attained. I am 
" saved by hope " from satisfaction with present good 
and my present self, and am prompted to the attain- 
ment of higher good and a nobler personality. Thus, 
self-love instigates progressive development. 

Experience of the past assures me that this hoped 
good must be realized, if at all, by my personal develop- 
ment into it ; that it must come to me in the form of 
enlarged personal capabiHties and diminished limita- 
tions. Thus, naturally, spontaneously arises in the 
vision of self-love a conception of what manner of 
being I desire, may, and ought to become. This is 
my ideal self Persons may be ignorant, crude, and 
weak, but all who have a definite consciousness of 



176 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



themselves do have and use, however unscientifically, 
the facts, being, self-love, and an ideal, or best self. 
This best self, which aspires to association with the 
perfect, is chief motive to self-love in a rightly adjusted, 
progressive being. It is this to which self-love is 
devoted. 

A perfect self, within my conditions, is an object of 
devotement which is consistent with all other rightful 
objects. Love never asks of me real self-degradation 
for the sake of another. The devotement of self-love, in 
that it ever seeks to realize perfection, is one with pure 
love. In it is nothing derogatory to others, but, on the 
contrary, it finds its best disposition toward others in 
being its best self. Seeking the highest possible egoism 
it realizes the greatest possible altruism. Pure self- 
love, in a dependent person, gives birth to pure love 
toward others. Or, what is the same, devotion to the 
achievement of a perfect self spontaneously loves others, 
because love and self-love are subjectively one. 

But this same instinctive self-love must practically lead 
to the recognition of self-love in others as the primary 
right and guiding devotement of their self-determination. 
And its natural benevolence must realize in them a love 
for each other. Their interdependence in attaining the 
practical interests of self-love must, in a practical way, 
develop and crystallize as the habit of their being and 
the central basis of individual and universal good. 
That which intuitively holds sacred the rights of self- 
love, in all their relations to each other, must recognize 
its identity with pure love ; its identity with unselfish 
devotion to the self-perfecting of others. Thus, in 
practice, uncorrupted self-love is nothing other than 
love egoistic and altruistic, — the harmonizing basis, or 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. j>jy 

law, of adjustment for all dependent persons. Thus self- 
love, in all its grades as a subjective impulse, instinct, 
intuition, affection, or devotement, develops love in its al- 
truistic form as the leading and harmonious mode of 
action among fellow-beings. It spontaneously actualizes 
that rule of perfect morality, " As ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye even also unto them." 

But when the elements of my nature, which are at 
once the action of the Creator and the basis of my 
interaction with him, are appropriated by my self-love 
they lead to a yet higher good than what is realized in 
my relations with finite beings. As ultimate depend- 
ence upon God comes to be recognized, love toward 
God, as supreme, is developed from self-love. And as 
conscience discloses the authority of the perfect, as a 
moral condition upon which alone my intentions can be 
self-satisfying, I identify the divine source of that author- 
itative ideal self. By so much as self-love apprehends 
its ideal, and by actualizing it realizes practical good, by 
so much it develops appreciation of being ; and by so 
much it recognizes and reciprocates the love of its 
author, God. In striving toward the actualization of 
ideal selfliood it thus becomes conscious of pure love 
toward all upon whom it depends. Finding thus, in 
the fact of dependence and the desire for highest good 
and the moral imperative of conscience, a changeless 
basis for the ideal self in his nature, as posited by the 
Creator, man is assured of the harmony of self-love with 
the love of God, and is reassured in his aspiration to 
companionship with the perfect. Thus, from the lowest 
consciousness of personal being, instinctively and spon- 
taneously it is the nature of self-love to develop supreme 
love toward God. 

12 



178 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



In this process each mode of iove, self-love, love of 
fellow-beings, and love of God, retains its object and 
characteristics ; and all are wholly good. They each 
and all realize in the consciousness of the progressive 
person the definitions given above, namely : (i) Love 
is devotion to the realization of perfect being. (2) Self- 
love is devotion to the realization of a perfect, or ideal, 
self. (3) Ideal being is an imperative criterion for actual 
finite being. (4) Love's actualization of absolute per- 
fection in God is the source of authority, the ground of 
moral obligation, felt to be in the ideal criterion of 
actual being in man. (5) Faith, the subservience of 
the actual to the ideal. 

In all these definitions the subjective unity of self-love 
with love of fellow-beings and love of God is maintained ; 
and the natural order of their development in rightly- 
adjusted, progressive Hfe must be, first, self-love j 
secondly, love toward fellow-beings ; thirdly, love toward 
God. Each has in it the law of universal personal 
adjustment, devotion to perfection of being. Fidelity 
to one of these modes involves fidehty to all. Treachery 
in one is treachery in all. 

It is clear, then, that self love is not only hoi}', but has 
in it that which can keep it holy. As long as a person 
aspires to actualize his best self his self-love abides at 
one with love, and realizes in practical ways that this 
companionship with the perfect is his highest con- 
ditioned good. A universe of beings, each maintaining 
a true self-love, maintains essential harmony throughout, 
and is wholly good. 

Disordered self-love must disorder the personal de- 
termination and misadjust the entire relationship. Thus 
it must break up companionship with the perfect, and 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. j 7^ 

obstruct the method of supreme good. While one 
dependent person cannot determine others he does 
determine himself within his conditions. He deter- 
mines his love, or supreme devotement, and what he will 
seek as his supreme good. To intend his best self, 
devoted to realizing self-perfection, can alone be that 
pure self-love which becomes consciously one with love 
of fellow-beings and of God. Hence the free inten- 
tion to become his best self, or to be something other 
and lower than this, must decide whether or not he will 
keep his self-love pure, — one with love toward God and 
fellow-beings. 

We remember that the self-determining intentions of 
dependent persons, though free, are conditioned. These 
intentions are formed by the use of the preliminary 
means of faculties and susceptibilites which are awak- 
ened in our nature by external circumstances. Also, 
their intentions are dependent upon supplementary 
effort, often continuous and repeated, to give them full 
determination. Their self-determination, in a word, is 
by use of preliminary and supplementary means. We 
bear in mind, too, that this is necessarily the nature of 
conditioned being ; not an arbitrary whim of creation. 
None but the independent person can determine him- 
self without means or conditions. 

Susceptibility of self-love to perversion, within these 
faculties and susceptibilities, is the point of evil incep- 
tion. Free will is capable of choosing evil, but it is not 
sufficient to account for the genesis of evil in the ab- 
sence of susceptibility to motives which incite disorder. 
One is capable of choosing as a matter of will a serpent 
instead of fish for food, but there is not the slightest 
probability that he will do so while he has no suscepti- 



l8o THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

bility, appetite, for serpents. But if he has an appetite 
which is susceptible to perversion he may come to de- 
sire such food. If we must account for his making such 
choice it is not sufficient to say, He is free to will it. 
We must find in his demand for food the possible 
appetence, or susceptibiHty, which may be excited and 
gratified by such food. So, also, the freedom of the 
will may account for the possibility of sin, but not for 
the probability. The improbability of the rise of evil is 
practically equal to an impossibility, but for the sus- 
ceptibility to selfishness which may be developed in 
the righteous satisfaction of pure self-love. 

Self-love is susceptible to perversion, naturally and 
innocently. The good and pleasure of actually pos- 
sessed powers afford a stand-point from which self-love 
may deem it a hardship to forego them for the sake of 
attaining other good and pleasure which may be realized 
in a higher and different, but untried self-development. 
Hence arises the liability to abide in the enjoyment of 
actually attained good, exercising and developing to ex- 
cess those feelings which it gratifies, rather than to use 
them as the preliminary means, the stepping-stones, to 
unrealized, but higher modes of life. This excessive 
development of the lower, and the dwarfing, by neglect 
and violation, of the susceptibihties to higher motives 
disorders the whole system and office of susceptibility, 
and substitutes an actually attained self for the ideal 
self which a progressive being must ever hold as the 
criterion of action, and which is essential to the purity 
of self-love. 

The probability of the departure of innocent persons 
from the purity of self-love lies in this susceptibiHty to 
temptation to undue gratification, which arises from 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. igl 

naturally and innocently acquired good. Yielding to 
it they determine an undue development of some of 
their feelings and powers ; and this, too, at the expense 
of neglecting and violating others. Thus they distort 
the whole system of motivity which subsists between 
subjective affections and the objective means of their 
use in the development of personal character. 

Thus they pervert their relations towards God and 
fellow-beings. They determine themselves otherwise 
than according to their created nature. This self- 
determined distortion of their nature is devotement to 
the gratification of the actual, the imperfect self It is 
the neglect and rejection of that ideal self which is 
present to them, backed by the authority of conscience 
in their progressive nature; and it is the rejection of 
the method of higher good. Hence it is that the 
innocent pleasure or ambition which affords a probable 
choice of the excessive indulgence of actually attained 
powers may prevent the attaining higher powers and 
higher good which are to be realized in progressive 
harmony with universal adjustment in devotion to per- 
fection of being. 

By such perversion of a person and of his relations 
to other persons he assumes to be a centre to which 
he demands the interests of all others shall be accommo- 
dated ; and he becomes an incitement or snare to like 
perversion in others. Thus selfishness may be estab- 
lished, not only in his determination of himself, but in 
the world. Thus a pure finite person finds in what he 
actually is a motive which may lure him from what he 
should become, — lure him into a selfish and therefore 
vicious life. Thus this susceptibility in all finite per- 
sons menaces the harmony of the universe with mo- 



1-82 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

tivity to evil. Thus the " freedom of the will " finds 
the occasion upon which its determination for selfish- 
ness is not only possible, but probable. 

Human history affords practical illustration, in a 
thousand ways, of the innocent susceptibility of self-love 
to a guilty and offensive disorder, which we have seen 
must be thought incident to any class of conditioned 
persons. The primary conditions of human existence, 
which are established by divine love, provide for the 
progress of human personality toward conditioned per- 
fection, but in these conditions of progress is the incep- 
tion of disorder. The knowledge of susceptibility to 
evil, in conditioned persons, is disclosed by conscious- 
ness of their progressive hfe. It is not dependent upon 
human experience of evil, but is merely corroborated by 
it. Human history evinces that the rise of evil in an 
innocent self-love is not a difficult or far-fetched con- 
ception, but an overshadowing fact, illustrated in the 
excessive indulgence of some, and the repression of 
other natural and innocent susceptibilities and faculties. 
This is their abuse. The question of good and evil as 
known to the human race is wholly one of use and 
abuse. Use is the harmonious employment of faculties, 
affections, and objects with reference to progressive per- 
sonal development. Abuse is their disproportionate 
employment, some in excess, others in repression, and 
hence, in disordered relation. Self-love is the self- 
determining devotement which decides whether in use 
or abuse it will seek its highest good. Clinging to ac- 
tual self and its good, self-love becomes selfishness ; and 
this perversion is the origin of all that has issued in 
disorder, abuse, and degradation. 

Whatever of poetic or allegorical setting may be 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. 



183 



contains the data of a real fall. The real fall is the dis- 
tortion of inner affections which, had they been exer- 
cised and gratified in their proper relation to a true 
self-love, would have developed harmonious character. 
The gratification of curiosity or appetite, as means, 
could not be otherwise than innocent and good while 
subject to a better self which was maintained by har- 
mony with their Creator, in the simple form of obedi- 
ence. But, made an end to be attained at the expense 
of their affection for God, this gratification was an abuse, 
which excessively developed the lower and dwarfed or 
abolished the higher susceptibility of self-love to the 
ideal. In this action self-love is turned from its devo- 
tion to an ideal life in communion with God, into devo- 
tion to actual self and its desires. This is a real fall, 
which rejects interaction with love and assumes vassalage 
to an actual but imperfect and now morbid, depraved 
self. 

Nor need we go back to Eden to know the reality of 
this fall. It is around and in us daily. Selfishness or 
perverted self-love is the acknowledged source and 
energy of all the other abuses under which humanity 
groans. As self-degradation has come about by abuse 
of subjective endowments in their relation to external 
means, these have been wrought into mighty forces for 
evil j insomuch that the physical and mental as well as 
the moral world are filled with evil energies. The pos- 
session of the soil and mine, the appropriation of their 
products, the very air and sunlight are subjected to 
abuse by man's false ethical adjustment toward them. 

As to how much present human selfishness and evil 
bias is hereditary, or how much is individually self-in- 



i84 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



duced, it is not pertinent to discuss here. We know 
that our conditions are largely awry by reason of the 
modifications which human selfishness has imposed upon 
the original conditions which the Creator posits for our 
progressive being. Yet science sustains no truth more 
firmly than that the more thoroughly we know and 
nicely interact with the Creator's action, the order of 
which is termed " natural law," the greater good and 
the greater progress in all that is good do we realize. 
Not only does this corroborate the fact of divine ben- 
evolence, but evinces that harmony with the divine 
action is the true use, and antagonism to that action is 
the abuse, of both ourselves and our environment ; 
evinces that use is the law of welfare or good, while our 
miseries are born of abuse. 

Whether we regard man as a fresh creation when he 
appeared as represented in Eden, or as a gradually 
evolved moral being prior to such appearance, the pic- 
ture of Edenic loveliness seems an appropriate environ- 
ment to his unsullied state, seems so as an exhibition of 
love's creative harmonies. By so much also, when he is 
fallen, does an unsubdued and riotous natural world seem 
an appropriate arena which may discipline him into a 
true use of himself by his effort to subdue it to his ser- 
vice. More accurately stated, — the hardships of his 
natural environment result from his false adjustment to 
it by his abuses, and by their corrective tendency they 
reprove these abuses and suggest his reformation to pro- 
gressive development as the remedy for these hardships. 
The ground "cursed for his sake" — that is, cursed on 
account of his false attitude in relation to it — yet vital 
with the activities of love's creative energies, invites man 
to return to the true use of himself that he may recover 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. ig^ 

it to right adjustment and Edenic loveliness. But while 
man dings to the abuses of selfishness the whole crea- 
tion must continue to "groan and travail in pain, await- 
ing the manifestation of the sons of God." 

The historical realization of selfishness illustrates its 
genesis and effect as a disturbance in the evolution of 
love. It is equally clear that such disturbance or dis- 
ordering of originally good elements cannot have taken 
place except as the chosen act of finite persons. A 
person who thus falsely adjusts himself disturbs the 
original harmony of being. He is a perverter who puts 
a false meaning into his relations to God and fellow- 
beings, assigns them the false character of enemies or 
servants, and almses their action toward himself He is 
a '' false accuser," and the person who chose to be the 
first perverter of good may well be termed, by bad 
pre-eminence, the Devil. 

Much sceptical ado has been made in ridicule of the 
fact of a personal Devil, but this only raises the suspicion 
that these sceptics have never thought far enough into 
the question to discern that they must either accept this 
fact or hold to the doctrine that evil is a principle, or 
quality, of independent being ; hold to the eternal coex- 
istence of evil with good ; which doctrine, of course, 
has no rational support, but is one of the crude supersti- 
tions of Dualism. If, of these two qualities, only good 
is from eternity, then evil has originated as a perversion 
of good elements ; and if so, this perversion is the act 
of a person or persons ; and the first of these persons 
thus guilty may be styled the Devil, or '' false accuser," 
with entire propriety. But, name him what we will, his 
personal agency and identity must be admitted, as a 
logical necessity. Moreover, the first of sinners may 



l36 ^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

with equal propriety be referred to as in a representative 
capacity ; and the whole course of evil which has suc- 
ceeded his initial perversion of good may be, in this 
sense, termed the "works of the Devil." 

To sum up at this point : Perfection of personal being 
consists in freedom from conditions ; hence God alone 
is absolutely perfect. Dependent persons must always 
be dependent for their existence, but may become per- 
fect within the conditions of this dependence. The 
whole evolution of love affords conditions to the pro- 
gressive development of dependent persons ; hence their 
right adjustment to these conditions is in using them for 
progress toward their dependent perfection. The pro- 
gress of developing personaUty from the most limited 
personal consciousness consists in the mastery of limit- 
ing conditions, and throwing them off as they are tran- 
scended by progressive self-determination. All condi- 
tions to progress incite to progressive determination by 
affording motivity thereto. In the term "motivity " we 
include both objective incitements and the inner suscep- 
tibility which may be awakened, exercised, and satisfied 
by objective incitements. When personal determination 
progresses beyond the need of any class of conditions, 
the incitements of that class should be dismissed from 
their motivity. The child who is old enough to appre- 
ciate a drum or gun, yet clings to his rattle-box, is sus- 
pected of idiocy. Or a man who is sane enough to 
distinguish excellence of character from physical pleas- 
ure, yet continues supremely devoted to the latter, is 
convicted, not of idiocy, but moral depravity. Hence 
experienced progress teaches self-love that these tempo- 
rary conditions are but means to higher self-develop- 
ment, — stepping-stones to the higher and wider condi- 



THE GENESIS OP EVIL. 



187 



tions of a nobler personality. But such may have been 
the interest, the enjoyment of these outgrown conditions 
as to make them still alluring objects ; and such may be 
the hardship of new and higher conditions as to render 
them, in themselves, uninviting, — only desirable for the 
better self- development to be attained by using them. 
The charm of progress toward a better life, devotion to 
perfection of being, a better self, is the only motivity 
that can be depended upon in such a crisis. Faith and 
love, in some form or other, can alone afford motivity 
by which the soul may transcend this besetment. But 
to continue in the exercise and satisfaction of those 
means which have fulfilled their use is to make the en- 
joyment incident to them the object of self-determina- 
tion. Self-determination chooses not to progress beyond 
them ; and the actual self, now attained, is the object to 
which self-determination is now devoted. The ideal, or 
better self is ignored, rejected. Perfection of being and 
companionship with the perfect are set at naught. Self- 
love chooses its good in whatever may gratify this actual, 
but imperfect, self. It is no longer devotion to the 
perfection of self, to the realization of an ideal self, but 
is devoted to the attained, actual self. This is selfish- 
ness ; and this, in a progressive personality, is violation 
of his being, the essence of sin. Thus the normally in- 
nocent susceptibility to lower motives is made an object 
of supreme devotion, is excessively exercised and grati- 
fied, and thereby rendered overgrown, morbid, and 
vicious. It becomes the lap of Delilah in which personal 
self-determination, the giant, dallies until, shorn of de- 
votion to the perfect, he is bound by degrading limita- 
tions. The susceptibilities to higher motives are 
unawakened, or, if awakened in any degree, they are 



1 88 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

rejected, violated, and ultimately abolished. Thus the 
good elements in progressive being are disordered, the 
true relations to other persons and to divine love are 
perverted, and the right adjustment of life is lost. 

In a word : Self-love in progressive self-determination, 
seeking the realization of an ideal self, is right and pure. 
But it may become perverted into devotion to an ac- 
tually attained, but imperfect self. This is depraved 
devotement, or a depraved, unholy self-love, which (i) 
renders the actual, lower, or imperfect self morbid by 
exaggerated importance and the gratification, exercise, 
and development of the lower means of self-determina- 
tion ; making them the end. or object, of that self-deter- 
mination. (2) It thus per^-erts these means from their 
rightful use as conditions upon which to develop higher 
conditions to a higher self-determination. This is to 
say, peiwerted self-love corrupts the actual self; and 
disorders the rightful relations of self toward God and 
the world. This is the genesis of evil in a person, or a 
world, originally good. 

Thus self-love is the pivotal fact upon which personal 
harmony is adjusted, for the highest good ; and the 
perversion of this pivotal fact, from devotion to self- 
perfection to devotion to actual self is the genesis of 
evil. 

This per^-erted self-love is selfishness. Sin and self- 
ishness are different names for the act of rejecting 
the ideal self which I ought to become and substitut- 
ing the actual self which I am, as the object of self- 
devotion. It is the apotheosis of self, the " covetous- 
ness which is idolatry." Self usurps the throne of God 
in the soul. Conscience, the consciousness of the 
authority of the perfect, condenms this action by im- 



THE GENESIS OF EVIL. 



189 



posing the consciousness of self-degradation. It in- 
volves the consciousness of offence toward all to whom 
I stand related ; and consequent guilt, which is the 
complement of offence. It is, therefore, the cardinal 
violation of being and all the relationship of being. 
The disrupting of true adjustment, it is the introduc- 
tion of strife, the antagonist of all good by its dis- 
placement with evil. It is radical contempt for the 
actual perfection of God and its moral authority ; and 
hence, the enemy of holiness and the corruption of 
being. Selfishness, sin, is the grand disturbance to the 
evolution of love, and therefore presents the essential 
" problem of evil." 



I go ^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 
I beseech thee, show me thy glory. — Moses. 

"The problem of evil," in its second phase, is the 
question, How does love in its evolution attain the 
perfect determination of altruism, — perfect benevolence 
notwithstanding evil? or, What course must the evolu- 
tion of love be thouglit to take in view of the rise of 
either error or selfishness? 

What has gone before exhibits the divine being as 
perfect, the human being as progressive, and that love 
is the nature of the action which determines the perfec- 
tion of the one and the perfect progressiveness of the 
other. Divine love determines the perfect being, and 
conditions the self-determination of progressive beings. 
While human love upon these conditions determines 
progressive human being, progressing toward an ideal, 
dependent personality which, when reaUzed, is the high- 
est type of conditioned being, — perfect dependent 
personality. 

Evil in general is the practical obstruction or antag- 
onism to good. It results either from error in carrying 
out devotion to the ideal, or from intentional lapse from 
that devotement. In the former case it exists in the 
person as error or mistake, and objectively as trespass 
and misfortune. In the latter case it is a rejection 
of love and a substituting of selfishness as the mode of 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 



191 



self-love. This, subjectively, is infidelity to ideal being, 
and rebellion against the sacred authority of the perfect. 
Objectively, it is the disharmony, abuse, and debase- 
ment of all the conditions to which it is related. This 
mode of evil will be considered later. 

It is clear that evil is the defeat, for the time being at 
least, of possible good, in varying degree, at any point 
in the career of any person or persons. Evil of either 
form mars, temporarily at least, the otherwise harmoni- 
ous universe, and retards the development of the highest 
possible good. 

Error must beset a person or a race whose exercise 
of self-love arises at the lowest stage of intelligence and 
power at which it is possible. This, indeed, to such a 
degree as to defeat the benevolence of the Creator, but 
for two implied considerations. These are, first, the fact 
that error does not imply a lapse or break in the love 
of the creature for his Creator, or in the devotement of 
self-love to his own highest ideal. The harmony of in- 
teraction with the conditioning action of divine love is 
unbroken. Error is a matter of misjudgment or unskil- 
fulness, but has no place in the inner intention of love, 
and does not necessarily induce selfishness. Hence 
simple error is action in detail in the preHminary and 
supplementary means of a true intention. But it may 
clash with one's environment of divine or human action 
and interests. For example, a most loving man, devoted 
to God and his fellow-beings and striving to be his best 
self for God and man, may, through error of judgment, 
practise that which injures his own health and that of 
his neighbors. Yet in all this, his personal devotement 
to universal good is the same, and his spirit is morally 
pure and benevolent. 



JQ2 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

This fact is the foundation for the second relieving 
consideration, — namely, the evil result of his misguided 
action educates him to a correct judgment; and his 
undisturbed moral harmony with love prompts him to 
correct his practice. Thus mere error conditioned by 
love is corrective in its tendency. It affords also the 
conditions for a more exalted exercise of love in benefi- 
cent reparation toward his injured neighbors, and in a 
nicer future interaction with the divine activities in his 
own nature and environment. 

Moreover, a progressive development which gradually 
evolves moral freedom at the earliest possible stages of 
intelligence and power, though it must be most fruitful 
of error, nevertheless not only results in the least evil pos- 
sible and is corrective in its tendency, but develops the 
greatest possible degree of innocent experience of good 
and ill. Error is thus made to strengthen the person 
against temptation to intentional evil. The highest 
consciousness of the excellence of right and of the 
obnoxious character of wrong, in proportion to the harm 
sustained, is thus acquired by finite persons. A long 
term of innocent error may so educate finite persons in 
the goodness of right and the harmfulness of wrong as 
to secure them forever against Hability to intentional 
wrong. 

In a progressive universe error is made by benevolent 
conditions to have a mission, but sin has none. Error, 
rendered self-correcting under the auspices of love, is 
the true "bitter-sweet" of human hfe, and is able to 
ehminate the bitter and perfect the sweet. If, in the 
history of a vicious race, it must be acknowledged that 
" there is a force, not ourselves, which makes for right- 
eousness," how much more could the same force, in the 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. jq^ 

history of a race which may ignorantly err yet is devoted 
to truth and goodness, maintain essential and reahze 
universal harmony. This force is the Creator's love, 
which, true to the ideal, posits an ever-present basis of 
correction, recovery, and harmony to dependent persons 
in all their errors. The unbroken reign of love is the 
element of perfection in a progressive universe. This 
perfection is not impaired by errors of detail. These do 
not disturb the reign of love, but can only occasion a 
change in the line of its development. Hence the dis- 
turbance to superficial harmony which may come about 
through innocent error is not an essential evil, but may 
become a good in progressive being. 

But there is a class of error which may arise as inci- 
dent to intentional wrong, — as the natural result of 
thinking from a selfish stand-point. The perversion of 
self-love to selfishness is a personal misadjustment 
toward one's entire relationship, which must be fruitful 
of incalculable error and consequent evil. For example, 
that least malignant form of selfishness termed egotism, 
or exaggerated self-esteem, leads the person who is 
afflicted with it into endless absurdities, and often ex- 
ceedingly calamitous results, to others as well as himself. 
To plead that these evils were the result of mere mistake 
will not excuse him in the judgment of his injured fel- 
low-men, but they hold him blameworthy and curse his 
inordinate self-esteem which betrayed him into these 
harmful blunders. Thus, but on a much larger scale, 
inordinate self-love guiltily augments the evil of the 
world by its unintended incoherencies and errors. 
Many who have simply intended to gratify an appetite 
for stimulants have become debauchees or murderers. 
The informing power of a good heart and the misleading 

13 



194 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



bias of a bad heart are such prominent forces in forming 
the judgments of men that centuries of human experi- 
ence have stamped them, severally, as wisdom and 
folly. 

This class of error is that which arises from ignoring 
God and devotion to perfection of being as the law of 
universal adjustment. Some of the ablest minds among 
men have perpetrated the most gigantic and hurtful 
follies through selfishness. The effort to possess the 
largest possible satisfaction to actual self is illustrated in 
the follies as well as crimes of a Macbeth or a Napo- 
leon, as in the fool who ignored his soul's nobler possi- 
bilities when he decided to " pull down his barns and 
build greater." This class of error must be assigned to 
selfishness, and can only be disposed of along with the 
solution of the problem of moral evil. 

The Problem of Moral Evil. — According to love, all 
being is sacred. The ideal which is self-conscious in 
love is truth ; enacted truth is righteousness ; intention 
to enact truth is holiness ; and the practical satisfaction 
of love is the good. 

Selfishness practically ignores all these facts. Ignoring 
the perfect, independent reality of God, it rejects the 
authority of the perfect, the ground of moral obligation, 
the supreme criterion of all action and being. Man, 
ignoring self-progress toward self-perfection, rejects the 
authoritative ideal which he should actualize, and 
thereby rejects the independent perfection which main- 
tains the authority of this ideal. He thus refuses to be 
the best he might be for himself, for God, and for fellow- 
beings. He rejects companionship with the perfect and 
thus determines himself in derogation of all others. In 
this abuse of his being he also abuses the conditions of 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. j^^ 

his being. This abuse disturbs the order of the world, 
and corrupts the conditions of human Hfe in general. 
It ignores that there is an intrinsic nature or indepen- 
dent reahty in which are truth, right, holiness, and 
good ; ignores that there is anything essentially sacred. 
Hence the line which discriminates good and evil is the 
question, Is love perfect action, or, on the other hand, 
can self-love, as the first right of being, determine for 
itself greater power and pleasure, find a better existence, 
a higher good in selfishness? And if not, has it aright 
nevertheless to choose satisfaction in a self-determination 
which is derogatory to others ? Hence selfishness is the 
attempt of the dependent to ignore the independent, the 
effort of malevolence to disparage benevolence, which it 
appropriates and perverts, and to corrupt the conditions 
upon which others must determine themselves. 

Thus the rise of selfishness, moral evil, or sin, raises 
many most difficult questions. Whoever was the first 
of sinners was the author of one of the most weighty 
problems known to human thought, — a problem upon the 
theoretic solution of which depends a true philosophy ; 
and upon the practical solution of which, by love, de- 
pends the success of the personal universe. And every 
sinner revives the same questions within his own rela- 
tions to God and the world. Some of these questions 
we here venture to state : — 

1. Is there an independent reahty? 

2. Is love the nature of independent reality, perfect 
action ; and therefore the criterion of all action ? 

3. Does it realize absolutely perfect being in God ; 
and therefore an authoritative criterion for all being? 

4. Is love's ideal, as self-conscious in God, the infinite 
ideal, absolute truth? 



196 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



5. Is love, the nature of God, intentionally determined 
by him, and therefore holy ? 

6. Is love-determined being capable of the highest 
possible good, under all circumstances ? 

7. Is a God whose nature is love the best God that 
can be? 

8. Is the universe, as evolved by love, the best that 
might be, capable of the greatest power for good in both 
quality and degi-ee ? 

9. May not finite persons determine a higher self-love, 
greater good, power, and pleasure for themselves by 
selfishness than by supreme love for their Creator 
and equal love for each other, and to that extent be 
independent? 

10. Is love the only kind of action which determines 
the highest good in any class of conditions ; or may we 
not be satisfied, if we choose, with a hfe which is in- 
different to God and may corrupt the conditions of 
fellow-beings ; may we not sin and prosper? 

These questions suggest how all-comprehending is the 
issue between a pure self-love, which is supreme devo- 
tion to perfection of being, and selfishness, which is 
supreme devotion to actual, but imperfect being. But 
they all centre in this : Is love perfect action, the nature 
of the absolute or independent reality? Or is it but 
an arbitrary determination which God chooses as the 
structure of things, which he upholds by mere power 
and thereby imposes hardship upon all which does not 
harmonize with this convention? If it is the latter, then 
the pursuit of truth, hohness, and good, on the part of 
men, is nothing better than a wise utilitarianism ; and 
selfishness is nothing worse than a mistake, or a wrong 
self-determination which one may deliberately choose 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. jg^ 

without blame, provided he accepts its ill results. But 
if it is the former, the nature of perfect action, then 
truth, holiness, and real good are intrinsic qualities of 
being, have an absolute basis which is independent of 
all relationship, structure, or conventionality. Man's 
pursuit of them is a matter of progressive companion- 
ship, with God as independent, infinite ; and man's rejec- 
tion of them is a matter of essential self-degradation, and 
a guilty violation of the rights of self-love in others. 

Therefore it appears that the solution of evil must be 
a question of permanence, or persistence, — the persist- 
ence of a personal universe. And this persistence must 
survive all susceptibility to disharmony and disintegra- 
tion. If a personal being can persist indefinitely, yet 
susceptible to evil, it follows that a perfect finite per- 
sonahty or universe can never be attained. Hence the 
evolution of a perfect universe by love implies that its 
grand requisite is to cancel self-love's natural suscep- 
tibility to evil and eliminate all selfishness. 

The issue which evil presents is, then, one of conflict, 
antagonism between love and selfishness. The original 
sin is the displacement of love by selfishness, as the 
nature of individual self-determination. Hence what 
has been termed '' the conflict of good and evil " is 
really the conflict of love and selfishness. It is a con- 
test for the supreme determination of personal being. 
All questions which arise between good and evil, the 
true and the false, right and wrong, are essentially in- 
volved in this. Upon the solution of this issue between 
love and selfishness depends the perfecting of the per- 
sonal universe. Hence the evolution of love implies 
that this question must be met and settled. How shall 
it be accomphshed ? 



198 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



How does the evolution of love condition the perfec- 
tion of the personal universe, notwithstanding the rise 
of moral evil? The answer to this question is implied 
in former chapters. What is needed now is to render 
more explicit here what is implicit there, touching this 
question. Hence, a considerable repetition of what has 
been stated may appear in this chapter, though the 
object is different. 

Motivity, conditioning self-determination, can and 
must afford the solution of this question. Elsewhere we 
have defined motivity as comprehending both subjective 
susceptibility and objective influence, inciting to a choice 
of self-determining action. Hence motivity is the in- 
fluence which their conditions afford to conditioned 
persons, and with reference to which they may freely 
act, adopting or rejecting them as the ground of their 
intentions. Thus motivity continually recognizes the 
moral freedom, or self-determination of conditioned 
persons. To render finite persons eventually unsuscep- 
tible to selfishness, and finally settle all the beguiling 
questions which sin has raised, and also to settle them 
by sin's total loss of objective motivity through its self- 
demonstrated failure and turpitude, and by the self- 
demonstrated persistence and excellence of love, is the 
grand end to be attained. 

We may therefore expect the evolution of love to 
take a course that will condition these two objects, 
namely : to cancel all susceptibility to selfishness, and 
neutralize all objective motivity to evil. We will con- 
sider them under the following heads : — 

I. Subjective motivity; or, in other words, inner 
susceptibility. 

II. Objective motivity ; or outer incentive. 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. iqq 

I. The question plainly recognizes that two things have 
to be accomplished, namely : the perfection of human 
character, and, secondly, the abolition of evil. The 
question also implies that the evolution of love cannot 
solve but can only condition the solution of moral evil. 
Since the question at issue is one of personal determi- 
nation, it leaves to the evolution of divine love to deter- 
mine nothing other than the conditions upon which 
dependent persons may determine the perfection of 
their being and the abolition of all evil. As their self- 
determination is the determining factor for the universe 
it must be held inviolate in this solution. 

Compulsory power cannot solve this question. It 
may be asked : Should not the Creator destroy each 
person who perverts his nature, by withdrawing at 
least his supporting power, and thus permit that person 
to lapse from being? Some, with amazing lack of 
thought, ask : Why did not God destroy the first sinner, 
and indeed every sinner, and thus prevent the con- 
tinuance and accumulation of sin and sorrow ? A mo- 
ment's reflection should suffice to show that such 
a procedure could never answer, to finite minds, the 
questions originated by sin, or abolish the suscepti- 
bility of self-love to selfishness. Indeed it would render 
it impossible ever to accomplish these cardinal ends. 
God would appear as maintaining his independence by 
sheer force ; hence force must be the highest manifes- 
tation of his nature, must be the ground of moral obli- 
gation ; and how low such morality would be, main- 
tained by force as chief incentive, is readily seen. 
Their harmony, personal freedom, and good must then 
be limited to the degree to which they might be secured 
by obedience under duress of abject fear. Thus God 



200 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

must appear to conditioned persons as but a dynamic 
independent maintaining himself by mere might, never 
evincing moral perfection or intrinsic excellence of 
character. 

Since no motive higher than fear of force could then 
appeal to finite persons, they would be incapable of 
higher than enforced obedience, and thus the determi- 
nation of a moral universe would be at an end. More- 
over, since God had not ventured to meet the question 
that selfishness may be more excellent than love, with 
any other solution than that of interposed strength, this 
solution would afford consolation and even prestige to 
the condemned ; would continue to beset the obedient, 
encourage the wicked, and threaten the disintegration 
of the personal universe ; would haunt the throne of 
God evermore. 

" Who overcomes 
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.'* 

Not upon conditions of justice ; hmiting the evolu- 
tion of love to the demands of justice. To secure that 
the existence of finite persons may be simply better 
than non-existence is merely just ; that is to say, this 
much is requisite to justify the Creator in his having 
chosen to create dependent beings. But this is not 
the object of love's evolution, cannot achieve a perfect 
universe, is not a determination of the degree of good 
which can be attained by only persons of the highest 
qualities, is not a complete realization of the divine 
benevolence. 

Just conditions imply, of course, the immediate 
ehmination of sin, whether by death or other punish- 
ment of the sinner. This must be for the reason that 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 2OI 

even justice must maintain the conditions to good, and 
eliminate incitements to evil. But such conditions 
cannot be maintained if any person or number of per- 
sons may practise disharmony and yet be continued in 
association with the obedient, and enjoy, as well as abuse, 
their benign conditions. The example of this impunity 
would constantly tempt others to sin. The fact as well 
as the appearance of justice would be wholly lost. 
Their evil action and influence would inflict injury 
upon innocent individuals and must corrupt society in 
general. Thus the conditions to good must be im- 
paired, incitement to evil enhanced, and the least of 
evil result not secured. This course of things must 
corrupt the entire race and defeat all good. Justice 
has no alternative but to maintain a process of casting 
out the factors of evil as they arise. It is a necessary 
implication that dependent persons, conditioned in 
holiness and benevolence only to the extent of justice, 
must be crushed immediately upon their practising or 
intending evil. 

It is true, harmony can thereby be assured ; the 
obedient would have no motive but to continue obedi- 
ent. Evil would be suppressed, the creative and 
supportive action of God would be preserved from per- 
version or abuse, the creation would stand justified, and 
the Creator's authority undisturbed. But this would be 
a universe of fear. Might would be necessary to sus- 
tain right. Mere strength would be the ground of obedi- 
ence, the basis of motives. It cannot inspire motives 
of a higher order than dread. Universal selfishness 
would be the highest type of character. This limited 
evolution of love cannot be perfectly holy, for the 
reason that it does not realize the ideal person or 



2 02 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

universe ; nor can it be perfect benevolence for the 
reason that it fails to determine complete altruistic 
benevolence. 

If this just conditioning of dependent persons were 
the Hmit of love's evolution, then either of two results 
must follow : the rise of evil by error or sin must 
corrupt the universe and defeat love, or else the wrong- 
doer must be immediately eliminated, crushed out, 
from its conditioning forces. In either case the question 
of the possible excellence of selfishness is not met, but 
remains installed as a powerful enterprise and has a 
prestige which discredits the moral authority of truth. 
The continuance and accumulation of sin must degrade 
the conditions which favor good, and enhance the con- 
ditions which favor evil, resulting in the entire displace- 
ment of the former by the latter. In a word, there can 
be no means of preventing the disintegradon and defeat 
of a personal universe upon conditions of justice, except 
by a process of casting out the factors of selfishness as 
they arise. 

That the Creator has an arbitrary right to create 
finite beings in conditions of jusdce, where their de- 
fection would be their disaster and where fear of 
destruction would be the highest incentive to obedience, 
is not disputed here. There are, for aught we know, 
such orders of being, '•' servants that do his will/' " living 
creatures " that confess his power, " angels that kept 
not their first estate," but, though there are such beings 
they are not the highest representatives of a personal 
universe. They do not know the highest conditions 
afforded by divine benevolence. They may know his 
righteousness, realize his justice, but such beings, con- 
fined to such conditions, cannot determine an ideal 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 2 03 

universe. They are not of the highest order of finite 
personaHty, not exponents of perfect altruism, not 
capable of the highest conditionable good. 

They are beings whose functions may form conditions 
to higher orders of beings, as the vegetables and animals 
of this planet form a portion of the conditions to man's 
being and development. By observation of higher 
motives as exemplified in the higher conditions of other 
orders of being they may learn to share the motives of 
those higher beings, and so attain to the highest personal 
character. The conditions of human salvation, which, 
perhaps, " these angels desire to look into," may inspire 
in them similar motives to those which condition man's 
rise from a position " a httle lower than the angels " to 
one above them, " crowned with glory and honor." 
And such orders may be needed to condition the 
perfection of others and of the universe as a whole. 
But on the basis of justice alone the highest personality 
cannot be attained. On justice alone a perfect moral 
universe cannot be thought. Even if persons were 
created at the highest point of finite inteUigence and 
power possible, they would nevertheless have no 
experience of evil, and would yet be free to sin. Of the 
infinite excellence of love they might, indeed, have the 
widest faith incident to the highest finite intuition, but 
the susceptibility of their self-love to choose their good 
in a selfish use of their magnificent powers would still be 
open before them. Hence, as stated more at length in 
the chapter " Creation," their security in righteousness is 
by no means assured. And in the event that they choose 
this selfish course, their power for evil would be the great- 
est possible, and the maximum of ill result must follow. 
And since their sinning would transpire in the midst of 



204 2"vys EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

the highest finite inteUigence and motivity, their over- 
throw must be immediate and final. Thus, again, the 
supreme motive to obedience would be selfish fear. 

Incapable of realizing its ideal on conditions of 
justice, love pushes its evolution into higher and wider 
modes of benevolence. The rights of justice all must 
admit. They can condition an evolution of energy, but 
cannot adequately condition an evolution of love ; can- 
not afford scope within which the divine choice to 
determine perfect unselfishness, perfect altruism, can be 
realized. The highest good possible to conditioned 
being cannot be achieved, because the highest self- 
determination possible to dependent persons, cannot be 
attained while limited to motives of hope and fear. 
Justice has its place, as indicating the rights of depen- 
dent and independent beings. It marks the level below 
which a God of love cannot create or condition sentient 
beings, and above which they have no claims upon 
him. They have no claim upon him for more than is 
just, but love, in seeking to realize its ideal universe, 
bestows upon them a degree of good far greater than 
justice could provide. Dependent persons may demand 
justice, but not grace of the independent. They cannot 
demand, but the Creator can bestow gracious conditions 
far above what justice requires ; and this he does in 
evolving the ideal universe. Grace does not violate 
justice, but transcends it. Justice marks the lowest 
plane, mercy the highest, upon which a universe may be 
projected. Upon the plane of grace God chooses to 
bestow the good which he realizes there is in being, the 
good which love is able to condition in a universe of 
dependent persons who are morally free. The evolution 
of love is essentially gracious, merciful. 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 205 

Further : In the question of love's perfection it is 
clearly its altruistic freedom which is put to trial, — not 
as to the capability of God's perfect egoism to afford 
perfect altruism, but as to the susceptibility of free, finite 
persons to afford it scope for perfect determination. If 
God visits sinners with forceful compulsion to obedience 
he confesses inability to condition full, practical deter- 
mination to altruistic benevolence, and thereby confesses 
the imperfection of his love-determined creation ; and 
this is to confess the imperfection of his nature, love. 
Hence it is that love cannot resort to force to disclose 
the intrinsic authority of moral obligation. God may 
have the arbitrary right to destroy the rebellious directly 
upon their sinful act, but the evolution of love is thereby 
estopped. Love, in sheer self-sufficiency, as indepen- 
dent self-determination, must meet rebellion with further 
benevolent conditions if it would condition the deter- 
mination of its perfect altruistic freedom. Let it be 
steadily held in our thought that an evolution which 
determines a perfect altruism is one which gives full 
development to the motive of creation, namely, benev- 
olence, in its proposed purpose, namely, the highest 
good of being. To attain this purpose, it is self-evident 
that benevolence must have all the scope of infinite 
altruistic freedom. With equal tenacity let it be remem- 
bered that this purpose is the same as a determination 
of a perfect objective ideal ; and that in the love which 
seeks to realize this ideal is the moral authority, or 
ground of moral obligation, in all the objective action 
of the Creator and to all finite being. Holiness can be 
thought only of action that is in accord with ideal per- 
fection ; and ideal perfection alone can fill out the 
thought of the highest good of being. Hence benev- 



2o6 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

olence as the motive to the realization of the highest 
good can only be thought as a motive prompted by 
holiness. God is benevolent as he is holy. He is holy 
and benevolent because his nature is love. Therefore 
the benevolent action of God must always be holy action. 
Holiness is, therefore, the law unto benevolence, as the 
ideal is the law unto the practical. It is clear, then, 
that the achievement of highest good to finite persons 
has for its motive a holy benevolence. As benevolence, 
therefore, is a motive born of that perfect egoism which 
realizes absolute holiness in God's perfect self-determina- 
tion, this benevolence, as motive to the determination 
of an objective universe, must be holy in all universal 
determination. Divine hohness that is not benevolent, 
divine benevolence that is not ho.ly cannot be thought. 

But when holy benevolence is misappropriated and 
abused, made the occasion and interacting abettor of 
sin by the persons to whom it has given existence, the 
question is, what must be the course of divine action 
that it may realize its holy benevolence in true fidelity 
to its ideal of a perfect universe? The ideal of being 
which is implicit in love's perfect action, whether that 
action be the self-determination of God or his determina- 
tion of the universe, must abide as the moral imperative 
in both egoism and altruism. Any action of God which 
might impair that moral authority would concede the 
failure of love and limit its altruistic freedom. Hence 
the thought of such action cannot be entertained. It is 
perfectly clear that holiness, as the law of action which 
develops benevolence, estabhshes the rights of benevo- 
lence ; and that benevolence is not a course of action 
which has no rights except to submit to abuse. It is 
equally clear that the benevolent action of God might 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 207 

rightfully cease at any and every point where it is abused 
by finite persons ; might, to conserve moral purity, with- 
draw its positing and interacting power at the first 
attempt of any dependent person toward selfish deter- 
mination. This would be, in legal terms, the limit of 
justice. But it would also be the failure of a moral uni- 
verse, the failure of altruistic freedom, the failure of love 
as perfect action, because it is a benevolence that can 
survive abuse only by force, and inspire reciprocity only 
by fear. If the divine ideal of a universe is thus to be 
limited by arbitrary right, and thus requires the support 
of force, it is clearly not the realization of ideal con- 
ditioned personality ; it is not and cannot become a 
perfect universe. 

The evolution of love has in it no place for coerced 
reciprocation. All degradation of being and all suffer- 
ing which comes by degradation of being must be 
inflicted by persons other than God. The good of be- 
ing, the good of every being, is the purpose of creation. 
From the bosom of love all creative forces steadily pour 
their energies in the direction of that purpose. Only by 
man's false self-adjustment, self-perversion, can his real 
degradation be induced and its sorrows experienced. 
Destruction of being can be thought to come to persons 
only by self-infliction. If persons in a love-created uni- 
verse become incapable of recovery it can only be self- 
induced. The railroad affords the best facility by which 
to travel over long distances, but if one adjusts himself 
falsely to that road by standing or walking before the 
engine and disputing the right to the road, this admirable 
railroad action will override and crush him. But, if he 
board the train the same harmonious and persistent 
action which would have crushed him, in his false ad- 



2o8 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

justment to it, will prove the greatest facility to his 
journey. 

No ! It is evident from the nature of this problem, 
from the nature of dependent persons, from the nature 
of God, that force cannot solve the problem of evil. 
Again, how may it be solved? 

Grace aloite can condition the ideal universe. That 
is to say that the ideal which imperatively demands 
realization in love's evolution is a universe of persons 
who shall attain to the highest self-determination, or free- 
dom, possible to dependent beings ; that they shall 
achieve this in harmony with divine love, and shall 
be able to attain security from danger of discord or 
defection ; and that the practical realization of this ideal 
is alone capable of the highest conditionable good, 
which is the benevolent purpose of love's evolution. 
Further, that is to say that this security of free persons 
can be achieved only by neutralizing all motive to evil, 
and affording the highest incitement and susceptibility 
to good. And all this is to say that the gracious evolu- 
tion of love, an evolution beyond the limits of justice, 
conditions not only the rise, but the remedy of evil. 

Grace is a necessity in the realization of a dependent 
moral universe. This is not to say that God is under 
necessity to create a universe, but having chosen to 
create he imposes upon himself certain necessary con- 
ditions ; and one of these is mercy, a degree of benevo- 
lence beyond the boundary of arbitrary right. It is that 
degree of benevolence which conditions the maintenance 
of dependent persons, though such persons are out of 
harmony with love by either error or intention. 

Since progressive development is the essential mode of 
attaining ideal conditioned being and its lower stages 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 209 

are most liable to error, it is evident that grace is a 
necessity to the evolution of love. 

Sin, the intentional perversion of self-love into selfish- 
ness, arbitrary right would demand should be estopped 
by the withdrawal of creative, or positing power from 
the sinner ; thus permitting him to perish. But we have 
seen that this intervention of force, by whatever mode, 
cannot meet the questions which sin raises, and the 
moral necessities it imposes. Such action would end 
an evolution of love, extinguish a moral universe except 
in the bare form of choosing between fear and penalty 
and would utterly cancel the moral sacredness of truth. 
Benevolent altruism, the motive to creation, would be 
defeated. The problem of the excellence or non- 
excellence of love and selfishness must be worked out 
upon their merits as rival methods of self-determination. 
Hence, grace is a necessity as affording scope in which 
this solution may appear. 

Thus a successful evolution of love must be able to 
condition the moral recuperation of sinners ; must de- 
monstrate love's ability to outlive all possible disaster in 
attaining a perfect universe, and thus yield to all finite 
persons the consciousness of its perfection in all it im- 
plies. Hence, gracious forbearance is a necessary con- 
dition to the evolution of love. Mercy, though not a 
necessity to divine personal perfection, is a necessity to 
a successful moral universe ; a necessity in realizing the 
highest objective good proposed by infinite benevolence. 
The infinite pathos of God's mercy has its germ in his 
benevolence as the primary motive to creation. It is 
not an afterthought ; it is " from the foundation of the 
world." Since only the gracious benevolence of divine 
love affords ample scope in which to condition motivity 

14 



2IO THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, 

to the ultimate solution of evil we come to consider 
more explicitly : What are the implied processes or 
forms in which love affords complete motivity to the 
solution of evil? 

Two words comprehend the answer to this question : 
Faith, and Persistence. By affording the conditions 
which will lead to faith the evolution of love furnishes 
to finite persons the form of motivity by which to cancel 
self-love's susceptibility to selfishness. Faith is man's 
self-determined condition upon which his love, his devo- 
tion to an ideal life, arises and determines his perfection. 
Thus love gains scope within which to inspire reciprocal 
love in man, and to demonstrate its merit. 

The gracious benevolence of divine love, which af- 
fords the conditions of faith, thereby gives scope also 
to selfishness in which to demonstrate itself, to modify 
natural conditions to suit its own ends, and to appropri- 
ate the lenience of grace in making full determination 
of its results, — a determination more favorable and im- 
posing than it could make but for the gracious forbear- 
ance and kindly conditions which divine love affords to 
sinners. 

By thus conditioning the thorough self-demonstration 
of their merit or demerit, their persistence or self- 
destruction, the objective motivity of love is enhanced 
and that of selfishness is abohshed. This outcome must 
afford a universal conviction that love is perfect action, 
perfectly adjusted life ; establishes susceptibility to mo- 
tives of love, and aversion to selfishness ; and thus settles 
all disturbing questions and secures universal harmony. 

We will be helped, however, in gaining a more ex- 
plicit view of this solution by a succinct grouping of the 
leading points or stages in the process. 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 2 II 

The Process of Faith. 

A. I. Love posits, in nature, or maintains by super- 
natural intervention, the conditions to faith. 

2. Faith cancels the susceptibility of self-love to self- 
ishness ; and conditions the progressive determination 
of dependent persons by conditioning hope and love in 
them. 

3. The complete development of their faith, exercised 
by love, establishes in them the highest finite experience 
of personal freedom, harmony, and security ; and estab- 
lishes in their self-love entire susceptibility to the mo- 
tivity of the ideal self, the ideal universe, and the moral 
authority of the perfect in divine love ; that is, suscepti- 
bility to love and aversion to selfishness. 

4. These self-determined quahties, harmony, largest 
freedom, and security, are the essential conditions to the 
achievement of the highest good. 

The Process of Persistence. 

B. I. This determination of love, upon the basis of 
faith, ehminates evil (i) by repentance of evil intention, 
(2) by the corrective discipline of ill results. 

2. The opposite or selfish determination eliminates 
uncorrected evil by self-defeat. 

3. The result of this process, confirming faith by de- 
monstrating the progress and persistence of love as per- 
fect self-determining action, and demonstrating the 
turpitude of selfishness, setdes all the questions which 
sin had raised and abolishes all objective incentives to 
evil. 

The importance of these forms of motivity, however, 
demands a fuller elaboration of this scheme. 



212 THE EVOLUTIOX OF LOVE. 

A. I. The natural conditions in which man is placed 
by his Creator render him conscious of certain always 
conditioning facts : being, dependence, self-love, reason, 
conscience, and self-determination, or will. These are 
the abiding conditions upon which faith arises and is 
maintained. The first three give rise to the impulse or 
demand for progressive development, the last three con- 
strue what that development should be and the manner 
of realizing it. Upon the facts being and dependence, 
reason unavoidably recognizes the independent ; and in 
the independent readily recognizes the infinite, the per- 
fect, the absolute. To self-love, with its love of being 
and desire for highest good, conscience promptly unites 
the demand to be one's best self. All these find har- 
monization in the effort of self-determination to harmon- 
ize the dependent with the independent. This effort to 
find the best adjustment of being, an effort which is 
spontaneous in all mankind, gives rise naturally to the 
question, what is the ideal, or perfect hfe ? And what- 
ever any one may judge to be the ideal, or true hfe for 
him under his circumstances, is the ideal which con- 
science insists he ought to actualize. This moral author- 
ity which conscience gives to the ideal of life is wholly 
inexplicable, except as the independent sentiment of a 
perfect being. This ideal of life, or ideal self, is not an 
object of perception and need not be rationally defined, 
but the demand for it is felt in the sense of dependence 
and self-love, its moral authority as a criterion for actual 
hfe is felt in conscience, reason grasps it as an implica- 
tion of the independent, and self-determination seeks to 
actualize it. In a word, these facts impose the convic- 
tion that present being has its only significance and 
satisfaction in becoming. '' Man never is [fully], but 



THE SOLUTION OP EVIL. 213 

always to be, blest." Acting upon this conviction is ad- 
justing the existing self as a becoming self, seeking per- 
fect selfhood. And this is only saying that it is acting 
upon the facts which consciously condition our being. 
This is living, active, practical, natural faith, the subser- 
vience of the actual to the ideal, of the present to the 
becoming, the imperfect to the perfect, the dependent 
to the independent. It arises naturally upon natural 
conditions ; and must arise just as naturally when the 
same conditioning facts are revealed to the human con- 
sciousness by supernatural methods. 

2. Faith cancels the susceptibility to self-love ; and 
conditions progressive self-determination by hope and 
love. The susceptibility of self-love to be beguiled into 
selfishness is the weak point, so to speak, of the personal 
universe, as it is of the individual person. This for the 
reasons that they are (i) self-determining, (2) their 
steadfast harmony must be progressively self-determined, 

(3) this progress must be incited by desire or affection, 

(4) desires and affections are susceptible to abuse by 
excess or neglect. A pure self-love, with but finite 
knowledge, may be lured by the gratification of one 
class of desires or affections to the neglect of others, 
which if not neglected would incite to further progress. 
Thus devoted to the satisfactions of an imperfect self, 
self-love sinks into selfishness. Thus self-love, condi- 
tioned by incitements to progressively actualize an 
ideal self, is liable to choose satisfaction in the ac- 
tual enjoyment of those incitements and discard the 
ideal. To fortify this weak point in self-love is a 
work which only each person can do for himself. To 
do this is to accomplish security by abolishing all 
personal susceptibility to selfishhess ; and thus a person 



214 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

or a universe may become secure in the steadfast 
harmony of love. 

There are but two possible conceptions in which a 
free being can be thought securely unsusceptible to evil. 
One is that of his omniscience, — a perfect knowledge of 
the infinite excellence of love and the non-excellence of 
selfishness. Bat this conception can apply only to an 
infinite person ; it is impossible to created beings. The 
other conception is that of self-love rendered unsuscep- 
tible to selfishness by subjecting actual self to the pro- 
gressive realization of an ideal life. Since the suscep- 
tibility of self-love to selfishness lies in satisfaction with 
the attained good of actual self, faith cancels this sus- 
ceptibility by subjecting the actual self and holding it 
subservient to the progressive realization of a better 
and ideal self. This progressive realization is accom- 
plished by supreme devotion to God, as the perfect, 
and devotion to finite persons, as possessing the rights 
and interests of self-love in common. 

Faith risks the rights and interests of self-love upon 
its essential identity with love, believing that love 
toward God and fellow-men will realize the ideal life 
which a pure self-love contemplates. Faith thus gives 
an outlook to hope, and affords scope for the exercise 
of the largest conditioned self-determination. Theoreti- 
cally this faith contains the conception, first, that love, 
as the nature of God, is actual perfection or perfect 
action, in which absolute truth and perfect good are 
self-conscious ; secondly, that dependent being exists 
in accordance with truth and good ; thirdly, that hu- 
man love toward God realizes essential harmony with 
absolute truth, and will achieve the highest conditioned 
good; fourthly, that the highest interests of self-love 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 215 

will in some way eventually fall in with supreme love to 
God and love toward fellow-men. 

When we say that the purpose in creation is to real- 
ize the greatest possible conditioned good it is said on 
the ground that love determines perfect benevolence by 
seeking to reahze the highest ideal of a universe ; and 
that this ideal actualized will be the greatest possible 
conditioned good. All this is held on the ground that 
love is perfect action, conscious of the infinite ideal and 
of the ideal universe, and hence the unit in which are 
absolute truth and perfect good ; and on the ground 
that the highest good, conditioned or unconditioned, is 
love's realization of its ideal. 

The belief that what is true is essentially good, and 
what is good is essentially true, is in the last generaliza- 
tion the belief that absolute truth and perfect good 
subsist in the nature of perfect being. And since love 
is the nature of perfect being, it is the ultimate unit in 
which are perfect truth and good. Hence the highest 
generalization is implied in "faith in God." 

But the rise of selfishness questions this unity of 
highest beneficence and perfect truth in love. It re- 
gards truth as an arbitrary structure, to be accepted only 
as it may be indicated by experienced utility ; and util- 
ity is estimated according as it satisfies the present, 
actual self. Thus selfishness is based upon unfaith, or 
unbehef. 

On the other hand, love, in the form of human de- 
votement to God or of love to fellow-men or of pure 
self-love, imphes the subjection of present, actual self, 
with all its utilities, as being but a point of departure for 
progress toward finite perfection. And this perfection 
need not be perceived or comprehended in advance as 



2i6 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

a matter of knowledge, but believed to inhere in love ; 
and that it will be evolved by the harmonious inter- 
action of human love with the all-conditioning love of 
God. Hence that attitude which man takes in which 
he subjects his actual self, with all present interests and 
utilities, to love of God and fellow-men, is actual or 
living faith. 

Practically, then, faith is man's complete self-subjec- 
tion to God, and consciously contains, first, entire de- 
pendence upon God for the conditions of the highest 
well-being ; secondly, entire freedom in practically re- 
cognizing this dependence ; thirdly, security in moral 
strength derived from purity of intention, alliance with 
the independent, and acting from infinite motives. 

Hope arises spontaneously upon these contents of 
faith. When faith is complete the sentiment of hope 
takes the form of defined progress, and love arises as 
the nature of personal determination. The subjection 
of the actual man to the reahzation of an ideal manhood 
kindles the aspiration for progress. Maintaining faith 
which constantly thus subjects the actual to the ideal, he 
can say at any stage of his experience : ^' One thing I 
do, forgetting the things which are behind and stretch- 
ing forward to the things which are before, I press on 
toward the goal." In the experience of faith and hope, 
progress is righteousness, harmony, freedom, and secur- 
ity. Unbelief is fossilization, and fossilization is sin. 

Love arises immediately and spontaneously when 
man's sense of entire dependence and his free self-sub- 
jection to the ideal is complete. It is supreme devotion 
to God as an absolutely perfect person, perfectly holy, 
true, and benevolent. This supreme devotement is the 
outcome of faith's adjustment of those conditions which 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 217 

the Creator's love originally affords for his interaction 
with dependent persons. It is an adjustment which 
subjects the intentions of man to the moral authority of 
the perfect as expressed in conscience. 

Practical faith, which thus operates through love, im- 
pliedly takes as an hypothesis, takes for granted, that 
God is perfect being, — perfect because he is love, not 
love because he is perfect. This is not logically defined 
in faith but is its spirit, the concrete sentiment of its 
action. Yet the truth thus hypothetized is not gratui- 
tously assumed by dependent persons, but is consciously 
recognized by them as imposed by the six great facts 
which we have seen, permanently conditioning their 
lives, — the facts which impose the conviction that our 
present being has its only meaning and real satisfaction 
in becoming. 

Faith in this hypothetic form contemplates that its 
adjustment to those conditions which impose the con- 
viction of God's perfection, and all that can be hoped 
for as implied in that perfection, will elicit the spirit or 
active sentiment of these conditions. Especially" that 
the action of God which imposes the authority of 
perfect intention in conscience will respond to faith's 
adjustment. This response of the spirit, the concrete 
sentiment of the conditioning action of God in us, " wit- 
nessing with our spirit " that God is love, ever in wait- 
ing to respond to our self-subjection, is the demonstration 
of faith's hypothesis. 

The consequent consciousness of harmony between 
conscience and passion, harmony among a community 
of persons thus faithful, and harmony of dependent 
with independent, progressive with perfect, conscious- 
ness of awakened susceptibility to the intrinsic motives 



2i8 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

which inhere in the nature of the independent, such as 
hohness, truth, and good ; consciousness of enlarged 
freedom, exalted self-determination, and increased moral 
strength, — are practical developments of this demon- 
stration. 

Faith thus conditions actual progress from the present 
to a better self, the conscious passing from selfishness 
to love, from guilt to moral purity ; progress in actuahzing 
an ever-advancing, ideal selfhood ; progress in appro- 
priating gracious conditions, as a tree appropriates the 
resources of the soil ; and progress in knowledge of the 
truth, as the tree extends its branches and unfolds it 
leaves to breathe a higher and wider atmosphere. 

3. The complete development of their faith, exercised 
by love, establishes in progressive persons the highest 
finite experience of personal freedom, harmony, and se- 
curity, and establishes in their self-love entire susceptibil- 
ity to the motivity of the ideal self, the ideal universe, 
and the moral authority of the perfect in divine love ; 
that is, susceptibility to love and aversion to selfishness. 

In this life of faith which is elaborated by love, a life 
which is elaborated upon the highest and widest gener- 
alization, personal character is not trammelled by mech- 
anism or restricted to the narrow limits of perceived 
facts, but has the scope of all the imphed facts of being 
and love. Devoted to the realization of an uncompre- 
hended, ideal selfhood, it lays hold of the infinite motives 
which are imphed in the all-conditioning independent ; 
the limitless benevolence and the moral authority of the 
perfect. Whether these data of faith are presented to 
the human consciousness by natural or supernatural 
methods, they constitute the broad platform upon which 
human love determines the laro-est finite freedom and 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL, 219 

highest harmony. By habitual faith, confirmed, stead- 
fast, inwrought by devotion to God in the midst of 
temptation, self-denial, and duty, human beings oblit- 
erate, cancel permanently all susceptibility to selfishness, 
and thus determine their security. Moreover, this se- 
curity is buttressed by the intensely developed suscepti- 
bility to all motives of love, and the aversion to selfish- 
ness. These results are attained in the process of faith's 
demonstration of love's perfection and the turpitude of 
selfishness. Susceptibility to love and aversio7i to selfish- 
ness are the lines of eternal fortification to the security 
of free, finite beings ; and these are established by that 
progress which faith conditions, hope desires and ex- 
pects, and love determines. 

Thus it appears that the freedom, harmony, and se- 
curity of finite persons are all implicit in the steadfast 
faith of even the least of those who trust in God. It is 
not a philosophy or a culture, though it affords both the 
largest philosophy and culture, but it is the enactment 
of a concrete sentiment which is inspired by the facts 
which God's conditioning love discloses, naturally and 
supernaturally, to the huuian consciousness. It is the 
enactment of a concrete sentiment which adjusts the 
actual to the ideal, as the essential condition upon 
which to realize that ideal. It is the consciously free 
self-subjection, or self-adjustment of the determining 
dependent, to the conditioning independent being. It 
is the arena of proof in which finite action gains assur- 
ance of the implications of the infinite. Hence all the 
questions which sin raises are settled by the progressive 
development of personal harmony, freedom, and secur- 
ity upon the conditions of faith. Hence it is in faith 
that the solution of evil is found. 



2 20 ^^-^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

4. These self-determined qualities, harmony, free- 
dom, and security, are the essential conditions to the 
achievement of the highest finite good. 

We have seen in a former chapter that the benevo- 
lence of love implies that the greatest good in kind and 
degree possible to conditioned beings is the divine ob- 
ject, or purpose, in creation. What are the forms in 
which that purpose is to be ultimately realized, we have 
not presumed to say. But in whatever form or forms 
or in whatever degree this object is ultimately developed, 
love implies that it is wholly beneficent, and that it is 
the highest conditionable good. This is merely saying 
that the highest good, conditioned or unconditioned, is 
the practical realization of love. 

We have seen, also, that this highest good can never be 
realized, except as the product of a universe which is per- 
fect in certain characteristics or qualities ; a universe con- 
sisting of finite persons whose qualities, or character, are 
incident to their perfect interaction with that divine action 
which affords the conditions of their existence. It is utter 
folly to suppose that the greatest possible good may be 
achieved by factors who are imperfect in quality, and im- 
perfect in their interaction. Hence we have seen that 
the supreme good, unalloyed in kind and limitless in de- 
gree, is utterly unattainable by finite persons until their 
qualitative perfection is attained. The realization of the 
good, then, is conditioned upon the quality of persons 
who are disembarrassed of all disharmony, all unessential 
limitation, and all susceptibility to defection, or selfish- 
ness. The thinkable degTce of good which is possible to 
the highest thinkable finite person or persons cannot be 
thought attainable except on these qualitative conditions. 
Hence we reaffirm that the supreme good of the universe 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 221 

must be conditioned upon the perfection which love 
realizes in God, and the perfected quality, or character, 
of the persons who compose the universe. The essential 
characteristics of finite perfection, we have seen, are the 
largest finite consciousness of freedom, perfect harmony 
in this freedom, and perfect security in this harmony. 
These, then, are the quahtative perfections which are the 
essential conditions to the supreme good of the universe. 

We have seen, also, that these qualities of free beings 
must be achieved by their cancelling all susceptibility to 
selfishness. We have seen, too, that not only freedom 
and harmony, but security, by cancelling this suscepti- 
bility, is determined by these persons themselves. In a 
word, the conditions to the highest good cannot be at- 
tained, except in the self-determined character of God's 
creatures. Hence it is clear that to determine their 
largest freedom, complete harmony and steadfast secur- 
ity is the only method by which the highest good can 
be attained. 

It has been made clear, also, that these qualitative 
conditions are determined in each person by perfecting 
his love to God, his pure self-love, and his love to his 
fellow-beings. In other words, by his devotion to a 
perfect God, to the realization of a perfect self, and to 
the perfecting of all others, — the perfect companionship. 

Thus it appears that these characteristics, — freedom, 
harmony, and security, — which each conditioned person 
may determine in himself, are the matured conditions 
upon which such persons may be living factors, inter- 
acting with God, to achieve the grand purpose of the 
universe. They are a set of conditions which God could 
not create. Even if he could create dependent persons 
in the highest harmony and freedom, yet he could not 



222 T^HE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

create them secure in that harmony and freedom, un- 
susceptible to beguilement, — unsusceptible to beguile- 
ment in the use of those affections and powers which 
are essential to instigate their development of highest 
finite personalty. These qualitative perfections of finite 
persons, which they must determine in themselves upon 
the conditions which God posits in and about them, en- 
able them, interacting with God, to achieve the purpose 
of creation, unmarred by any suspicion of selfishness, 
unalloyed with evil. 

Moreover, these self-determined perfections, the essen- 
tial conditions to the supreme conditioned good, are 
attainable by persons of the least intelligence who act 
upon faith in God. And thus is established among 
men, though weak and ignorant, that practical character 
which is possible only upon the ground that love is 
perfect action, the nature of perfect being, and that 
the realization of its ideals is the highest good. This 
establishes perfect subjective motivity to good in all 
the faithful ; and thus is established the nucleus ef a 
self-determined universe, free, harmonious, secure, and 
eternal. 

11. Objective motivity, or external incentive, is to be 
understood as comprehending every influence which 
may appeal, as an object of either affection or aversion, 
to the inner susceptibility. As the subjective motivity is 
perfected by the cancelling of all susceptibility to selfish- 
ness, on the basis of faith, so also is the objective motivity 
to love completed by the persistence of love and the 
failure of selfishness. This persistence is in two princi- 
pal forms, — the persistent conditioning process of divine 
love, and the persistent determination of human love, — 
both evincing perpetual personal life and altruism. 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 223 

Persistence, the true " survival of the fittest," is the test 
of perfect action, hence a test of personal excellence. 
It is a question between love and selfishness upon which 
their claims to excellence must be demonstrated. If 
the nature of perfect action is love, a mode of self-deter- 
mination capable of perpetual personahty, eternal life, it 
will persist. If selfishness is capable of persistent and 
progressive personality it must abide evermore. But 
personalty is self-determined freedom, hence the ques- 
tion of persistence depends upon the power to maintain 
or extend personal determination. If love were a mode 
of personal action which would increase its limitations 
and diminish its freedom, or self-determining power, it 
would only be a question of time, when in the exercise of 
love, personality would be wholly sunken and lost. If, on 
the other hand, it throws off limitations, obtains mastery 
of conditions, makes use of them to rise to higher con- 
ditions, and survives their use, it thus not only maintains, 
but enlarges its sphere of self-determination, and enacts 
a persistent personality. So, also, if selfishness, as a 
mode of self-determination antagonistic to love, increases 
personal hmitations, diminishes personal freedom, it is 
only a question of time when, by selfishness, personal 
freedom will be wholly sunken. And, on the contrary, 
if it can determine a perpetual personal existence, it 
must continue evermore. Hence it is plain that the 
excellence of personal being consists not in pleasure, 
but in exalted personality, self-determined persistence. 
This is the supreme good. It is found in that mode of 
action which realizes persistent personal development in 
companionship with the immortals. 

The exponents which indicate the degree of personal 
self-determination are personal persistence and altruistic 



224 ^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

freedom. Love, the action which realizes perfect egoism 
in God, affords perfect altruistic freedom and subjects 
itself to a test of this freedom in creating and upholding 
a universe of persons who are free to antagonize and 
pervert its action. It maintains the conditions of their 
existence, freedom, and progressive development. And 
nothing but their own free determination can impair 
these conditions or debase their owm personahty. And 
if the benevolence of the Creator endures, uncorrupted 
and unimpaired, any strain which the freedom of the 
universe, can impose upon it, the universe thereby demon- 
strates the perfect altruistic freedom, and this demonstra- 
tion imphes the perfect self-determination, of his love. 
Thus the universe becomes conscious of the fact that 
love is perfect action. Love, by creating a personal 
universe, professes to be the nature of independent be- 
ing, perfect action, infinite energy perfectly adjusted, 
which is infinite personality, and permits the universe 
to demonstrate to itself this perfection. Moreover, for 
persons who shall by means of loving devotion to others 
determine a progressive personality in themselves, their 
altruistic devotement stands as the exponent of their 
personal excellence. The degree to which they are 
capable of devotion to the welfare of others is the 
measure of their personal greatness. Thus each person 
has in himself the means by which to demonstrate the 
persistent and progressive quality of a loving self-deter- 
mination. He, therefore, demonstrates for himself that 
love has in it eternal life. 

On the other hand, selfishness says : " Live for your 
own pleasure and ambition. Use your strength of frame 
and brain to subdue others and appropriate their rights 
and service." Self-satisfaction is the criterion of per- 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 



225 



sonal excellence which selfishness affords. Each person 
possesses the conditions upon which he may prove his 
personal exaltation or degradation in the degree he is 
capable of altruistic devotement. If he must absorb the 
resources of others to maintain his satisfaction, secure 
his good, he is to that extent dependent, personally 
limited. Though he have the material and intellectual 
might of a Caesar or Antony, or the splendor and admi- 
ration of a Cleopatra, and yet requires them all to satisfy 
his passion for pleasure or power, he simply evinces that 
all his resources are absorbed by his lowest and narrowest 
subjective wants. Selfish egoism is an ever hungering, 
but unsatisfied self-hmitation. 

In the security gained by cancelling self-love's suscep- 
tibility to selfishness we have the first cardinal point of 
love's persistence in successfully fortifying the weakest 
point in finite persons. 

The point now to be noted is the disposition to be 
made of the evil which has resulted to human nature by 
selfishness ; and the evils of human environment in the 
form of perverted social, civic, and religious conditions , 
evils which have been developed through the physical, 
mental, and moral perversions which have arisen from self- 
ishness. Centuries of abuse have given apparently perma- 
nent hold to these evils and made them the hereditary lot 
of mankind. They have the seeming, at least, of persis- 
tent forces ; and many have been led to regard them as a 
part of the essential structure of human nature. But their 
permanence is only apparent, not essential. The fact that 
faith, working by love, is practicable with all human be- 
ings, with the crudest as well as the cultured, evinces that 
personal determination upon the conditions of grace can 
uproot them all. Hence, ''the process of persistence." 

15 



226 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

B. I. Tlie determination of human love upon the basis 
of faith eliminates evil, (i) by repentance of evil in- 
tention ; (2) by the corrective discipline of ill results. 
This is to say that essential harmony maintained or 
restored by repentance persists in its ability to correct 
all ill results either of error or sin ; just as truly adjusted 
machinery wears away and corrects all superficial rough- 
ness or inequalities. A universe evolved by love can 
neutralize, make away with, or turn to account all in- 
accuracies, (i) Of wrong actions, all is of the nature of 
mere inaccuracy, except bad intentions. These alone 
constitute self-determining action. Therefore, in a uni- 
verse of persons, ultimate harmony depends on harmony 
of intentions alone. A sin once committed can never 
be recalled ; it is an enacted reality, existing now inde- 
pendent of the will or wish of the perpetrator. But since 
the intention in sin may be recalled, repented, confessed, 
renounced, the original harmony of pure intention be- 
tween God and the sinner may be restored ; and this 
personal harmony will ultimately correct the ill effect 
which the sinner may have otherwise sustained. Hence, 
upon repentance of intention, faith affords personal re- 
adjustment and reparation, in the sense of forgiveness 
and moral recuperation, to sinners. 

(2) The objective evil effects of their former sinful 
actions fall into the category of inaccuracies, errors, or 
superficial maladjustments, and are transcended by 
reparation or by being otherwise turned to account as 
means of corrective chastisement and discipHne, or in 
mutual neutralization and self-defeat. They have be- 
come a part of the general environment, in which they 
ultimately neutralize each other. Physical death, the 
culmination of these ills in a change of environment, 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 22 7 

ends them for individuals. The corrective and dis- 
ciplinary tendency which love-given conditions, natural 
and supernatural, impose upon error and sin, conditions 
all persons with means of personal recuperation. The 
overmastering for good which love's world-sustaining ac- 
tivities give to all objective results of finite action are 
but "that force not ourselves" which, as history wit- 
nesses, " makes for righteousness." Man's personal de- 
termination in faith and love co-operating with divine 
love, in and around him, thus not only persists as against 
the evil results of former abuses, but as counteracting, 
neutralizing, and outliving them. 

Again, if alongside of selfishness and in spite of its 
obstructions love is able to demonstrate its merit as a 
mode of self-determination, it will successfully condi- 
tion their mastery of limitations, and enlarge the scope 
of self-determination for individuals and communities 
who accept it, giving real progress ; if it afford them, 
each and all, an altruistic self-love ; if it advance 
them to clearer knowledge of truth and wider domi- 
nance of pure intention ; if it give them increasing 
susceptibility to unselfish motives, and aspirations to per- 
fect personal character ; if, in a word, it enable them to 
" partake of the divine nature," which is supreme devo- 
tion to perfection of being, then human self-love be- 
comes, like that of God, unsusceptible to selfishness, 
averse to all evil, and morally incapable of questioning 
the infinite merit of love or the entire demerit of sin. 

Further, if love accomplish this demonstration, not- 
withstanding the utmost antagonism of sin, notwith- 
standing the strain, so to speak, which the free course 
of selfishness has put upon it, then love becomes self- 
conscious in the universe as the nature of independ- 



228 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

ence ; proves itself to be perfect action in conditioned 
being by its self-sustained persistence. 

With this universal consciousness that love is perfect 
action will appear that its ideal is absolute truth ; that 
this truth is the ground of moral obligation, that ethical 
being, or personality, is the highest mode of existence, 
that a universe evolved by love is the perfect universe, 
and that God is the unconditioned, infinite, perfect 
person, who alone exists in his own right, and by 
whose grace, only, all finite beings exist, — and hence, to 
whom is due, by infinite obligation, the supreme love 
and confidence of all dependent persons. 

2. Selfish determination eliminates uncorrected evil 
by self-defeat and self-Hmitation. This is to say that 
uncorrected selfishness and its corruption of conditions 
render those conditions retributive. 

Retribution is a change of conditions which results 
to conditioned persons either as reward or punishment, 
accordingly as they determine. We have already 
recognized that justice is the lowest plain upon which 
love can be thought to condition the existence of per- 
sons. Hence, when individuals or communities by 
selfish determination debase themselves and the gen- 
eral environment beneath all susceptibility to recovery, 
and assure like debasement to all sincere persons who 
may appear among them, children and youth for ex- 
ample, justice, the lowest form of love, must in some 
way eliminate them from conditioning forces. When 
they render themselves unsusceptible to love, are mor- 
ally incapable of faith or reform, love cannot permit 
them to condition the ruin of persons who, in these 
conditions, cannot but be overwhelmed. Furthermore, 
they are, in this incorrigible character, no longer objects 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 229 

of gracious recovery, and their continuance in such 
gracious conditions would indicate imbecility in divine 
love to maintain itself or sustain the innocent. They 
are objects of retribution. 

Retribution must, in some way, take place. But this 
does not necessarily imply that supernatural or miracu- 
lous infliction must intervene to punish obdurates. Nor 
does it imply a suspension or violation of their personal 
determination. On the contrary it means that their 
conditions must change, or rather that they have, by 
self-perversion wrecked their relations to the faith-con- 
ditioning quality of divine love's activities in and around 
them ; and that now these activities, by reason of their 
perversion and man's false attitude towards them have 
become retributive. Retributive suffering is wholly a 
matter of abused conditions, whether those conditions 
are naturally or supernaturally given. All retributive suf- 
fering must come about as a revolution of conditions, nat- 
ural or supernatural ; and these revolutions are brought 
about by dependent persons themselves, in either their 
individual or collective capacities, or both. The physi- 
cal elements, though inestimable blessings in their use, 
are sources of unspeakable danger and calamity in their 
abuse. A man's attitude in relation to them must deter- 
mine whether they shall be to him a blessing or a curse. 
So, also, the most intense conditions to human exaltation 
which divine love affords, naturally or supernaturally, must 
be rendered by man's self-perversion the most intense 
conditions to retributive disaster. Man may make them 
the home of peace and good will, or the den of beasts 
and fiends. In the former case, peace, progress, ideal 
truth and beauty will be reahzed by communities and 
individuals ; in the latter, they must perish. 



230 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



We recognize at this point that as the conditions of 
human hfe are in three general forms or classes, men's 
retributive changes of condition are, correspondingly, 
three : — 

{a) Race retribution. 

{b) Social, or community retribution. 

{c) Individual retribution. 

{a) The first are the race conditions according to which 
generations of individual beings have their successive 
continuance and quaHties in common. It is not accurate 
to say that " man is born an animal," if we use the term 
" animal " synonymously with " beast " or '' brute." He 
is born a personal nature. The babe is not a mere animal 
nature upon which a personal nature may be developed ; 
any more than the dainty egg in the nest is a seedling 
of the honeysuckle from which a humming-bird may be 
developed. He is born a personal nature upon which 
self-determination may arise and develop conscious per- 
sonality. But upon a brute-nature, however perfect, a 
personal self-determination can never be developed. 
The human race is a race of beings whose natures are 
conditions to personal self-determination, — a race of 
personal natures. They are naturally animal only in the 
sense that they exist upon and have some common 
race conditions. The abuse of race conditions by any 
individual must debase those conditions for succeeding 
members of the race, just to the extent he may have 
race-relationship to them. And if he happens to be 
the first of a family or tribe or of the whole human race, 
his abuse of race conditions must deprave the nature of 
all succeeding him unless there may be some method of 
amelioration. 

This debasing of race conditions must also corrupt 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 



231 



and impair the conditions of personal determination for 
both individuals and communities. And if, instead of 
resorting to ameliorating methods, his descendants con- 
tinue the abuse of their race-conditions, this abuse, un- 
corrected, must be ultimately self-limiting and self- 
defeating, — in other words, retributive by way of physical 
disorders and the enfeeblement and death of individuals 
and communities as racial factors. 

Racial retribution is developed in various ways, es- 
pecially in disease, shortening of the term of physical 
life, and in physical death. The implication of love at 
this point is clearly this : if the original adjustment of 
the race to its divinely appointed nature and environ- 
ment had been maintained, — that is to say, if selfish self- 
determination had not been adopted by man, thereby 
abusing and perverting his nature and misadjusting it to 
his environment in racial respects, — individual develop- 
ment would have ultimately transcended all race condi- 
tions. A change of environment, progressively, would 
also have been developed by the progress of the race 
as a community. An individual transcendence of race 
nature, or an exaltation of that nature to higher capabil- 
ities and fitness must have resulted from individual 
progress in interaction with God. Race relations, hav- 
ing been used in the determination of higher relations 
to God, must have been eventually superseded. To pass 
to more intimate interaction, communion, with him who 
is purely a spirit, and to determine a quality and degree 
of love which is free from physical or merely racial con- 
ditions, imply a change of environment which corres- 
ponds to that which physical death, in the perverted 
conditions of our race nature, brings to the faithful. 

But, though a change from physical conditions might 



232 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



have taken place in case of no maladjustment, but be- 
cause of a personal development from original innocence 
by which the present bodily conditions should be tran- 
scended, yet the further implication remains that death, 
as we know it, is a catastrophe which has been precipi- 
tated by man's abuse of his nature and environment. 
The personal transcendence, or translation, of members 
of a sinless race may be thought as a sublimation quite 
exalting and glorious, — quite other than death as we 
know it, — 

" Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred, 
Or mown in battle by the sword." 

Such developm.ent, it is probable, may sometime ob- 
tain in the latest generations of men, when " they shall 
not all die, but shall all be changed." Such change of 
individual conditions may be termed translation, or exal- 
tation, but not death. Death is a catastrophe which, 
though it cannot prevent the passage of faithful persons 
to higher conditions of companionship with God, is, 
nevertheless, a horrid illustration of the self-limitation 
and self-defeat of racial evil. Physical death fastened 
upon racial conditions, while failing to intercept the per- 
sistent personal progress of the faithful, is but self-Hmi- 
tation and self-defeat to the selfish. 

This physical catastrophe which results from moral 
obliquity has, for aught any one can see, become 
hereditary because the physical maladjustments, con- 
tinued and multipHed, have been made hereditary. 
Nor can any one affirm that if the human race, or any 
of its members, shall at any time, recover complete 
readjustment to the Creator's physical activities they 
may not find immunity from disease and death. A 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 233 

witty scoffer has said, '' In a perfect world good liealth 
and not disease should be catching." And so it may, 
with perfect adjustment. 

To urge that physical death is natural, inasmuch as it 
prevails as a law in the natural relations of plants and 
animals, is nothing to the purpose, since these have no 
discoverable object other than to constitute some of the 
conditions to the development of personal life. 

Death by age or infirmity is the wearing out of the 
bodily energies by an attrition which, when in earlier 
ages it was less, occurred after longer periods than 
in the more complex and multiplied abuses of later 
generations. 

That physical calamities, such as earthquakes, storms, 
etc., would have taken place, we do not dispute. But 
it is by no means certain that dangerous exposure to 
these things would have occurred, had the propagation of 
the race and its spread upon the face of the earth pro- 
ceeded according to the promptings of a righteous ad- 
justment to its environment. Whether the occasion be 
a Noachian deluge or the physical destruction of a Sodom, 
there is every reason to believe that human exposure 
to these catastrophes might have been naturally 
avoided had the locating and pursuits of communities 
proceeded according to the promptings of aright adjust- 
ment of man to his conditions. Nor can it be denied 
that the appropriating the earth by men, in righteous 
adjustment to God and each other, might have pro- 
ceeded in such a way, in all cases, as to find these physical 
convulsions harmlessly correlated with the progressive 
preparation of a fit environment for a progressive race. 

Death by want, war, or crime is, also avoidable by 
righteousness ; would never have taken place but for 



234 ^^-^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

selfishness ; and will cease among men through the 
persistence of love. 

In all this we can see nothing in physical death from 
either disease, old age, famine, violence, or physical 
catastrophe which evinces that it is anything other than 
a change of environment hastened and rendered appall- 
ing, if not brought about, by the continuous mal- 
adjustment of man to his natural conditions, — a change 
which love's evolution is made to effect by this mal- 
adjustment, and by which love avoids injustice in 
conditioning the personal determination of man. It is 
a calamity which no individual of the race can prevent 
in himself, for the reason that the maladjustment is 
racial. Though death by violence is often immediately 
caused by individuals or communities, yet these causes 
are conditioned in race and society abuses. Ancestors 
have induced, largely, the individual's physical maladjust- 
ment. Its correction, like its induction, must be racial. 
It is a racial, not individual, retribution. It is a change 
of environment which can inflict no irreparable injustice 
upon the innocent, but protects innocence from a fatal 
domination of corrupted conditions. It serves the cor- 
rective discipline of the corrigible ; and is retributive to 
the incorrigible only because his selfishness has sought 
its good in these racial abuses and sacrificed spiritual 
to racial conditions. 

The sum of what can be affirmed of this whole matter 
of physical death is this : There is that correlation in 
love's activities which conditions either the innocence, 
the progressive development, the corrective chastisement, 
or the just retribution, of man, as a race, a community, 
or an individual. But man determines which of these 
results it shall be. 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 235 

{b) Social retribution, or retribution to communities, is 
that revolution of this class of conditions which men, as 
communities, determine. Personal associations growing 
out of individual and race conditions, and taking the 
form of households, tribes, nations, or the entire popu- 
lation of the earth, sometimes, we term communities. 
Persons determine themselves as communities as well as 
individuals. And, as communities modify the condi- 
tions of individuals, so do individuals modify the condi- 
tions of communities. Hence the self-determination of 
communities, as well as that of individuals, is susceptible 
to discipHne and capable of progress or retrogression. 
Communities may be guilty of abusing their conditions, 
or they may properly use them ; and hence are suscepti- 
ble to the corrective tendencies of divine love, or may 
incorrigibly abuse them. Hence the uncorrected sel- 
fishness of communities and its corruption of conditions 
are eliminated by self-limitation and self-defeat. The 
worth and strength to persist of any type of society or 
civilization consists in the degree to which it conserves 
the conditions to individual personal progress. Accord- 
ing to this criterion communities must progress or 
retrograde ; must go forward or backward. If they go 
forward the general scope of individual freedom, con- 
sistent with harmony and security, is enlarged. If they 
go backward individual progress is repressed. Hence 
the measure to which communities condition the pro- 
gress of individuals in self-perfection is the criterion 
according to which these communities must rise or fall. 
Thus moral resources constitute the only disinfectant 
which can prevent the social, civic, and material decay 
of a community. However great may be the develop- 
ment of mental and material resources in a community, 



22,6 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



their abuse, impairment, and ultimate destruction must — 
and according to history do — follow upon the neglect 
or corruption of moral resources. 

Progress in the development of mental and material 
resources may be attained to a degree by the efforts of 
both the righteous and unrighteous, — jointly, but from 
different motives. The righteous by altruistic endeavor, 
the unrighteous from motives of power, gain, and pleas- 
ure, will elaborate utilities and refinements. But be- 
cause of this difference of motives, these objective 
advantages are to the former occasions for higher 
determination of faith and love ; to the latter they are 
occasions for a more inveterate and complex selfishness. 
With the one they tend to unification, with the other, 
to segregation. The preponderance of the better ele- 
ment tends to the preservation and order of society, but 
the prevalence of the bad is the prelude to disorder and 
disaster. Though under the impulse of virtuous motives 
a nation may rise from barbarism to civilization, from 
civilization to refinement, yet if its moral resources be- 
come neglected or corrupted it will pass from refine- 
ment to effeminacy and thence to barbarism again. 
The whole conflict of the ages is reducible to that of the 
spiritual and the physical man, — faith and selfishness ; 
and in every case in which society has fully yielded to 
the dominance of selfishness, decay and disaster have 
followed. 

The amenities of divine love in and around them, the 
prolonged mercy of God, and the amplified advantages 
incident to the general progress are appropriated by the 
selfish ; and instead of this " goodness leading them to 
repentance," they make it their opportunity for continued 
and adept determination in selfishness. Thus selfish 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. ^Vj 

society, as such, must attain incorrigibility in wicked- 
ness. Though, hke Babylon and the Roman Empire, 
nations may require centuries to work out their dissolu- 
tion, yet it is inevitable. 

Divergence, clear and radical, as between individuals 
and communities, as between communities and nations, 
must result from these two lines of self-determination. 
The data of faith which are implicit in the original con- 
ditions of our being must become explicit in the life 
and practice of the faithful. Hence the antagonism to 
these conditions must become pronounced in the life 
and practice of the selfish. The self-developed persis- 
tence of a life of love based on faith, on the one hand, 
and the constructive persistence of selfish life based upon 
the sufferance of divine mercy and the patience of the 
faithful, on the other hand, must result in the divergence 
of these two elements in society, politics, and trade. The 
faithful must become radically so ; the wicked, more con- 
firmed and implacable in wickedness. 

Crises must be brought about by the essential antago- 
nism of the two becoming thus sharply defined. Though 
an endurable balance of influences may delay a crisis for 
a long time, and the hopes of the faithful and the fears 
of the wicked may construct temporary conciliations 
and conventions, yet inevitably the rupture must come 
when the pure must renounce the vile, the vile must 
detest the pure. 

These crises must come to individuals, neighborhoods, 
nations, and eventually to the entire population of the 
earth. To individuals it may be as an outlaw forsaking 
the associations and restraints of a well-ordered com- 
munity ; or a Noah, Abraham, Lot, Timon, Luther, or 
Roger Williams ; the Huguenots or Puritans, separating 



238 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



themselves from incorrigible social, civic, or religious 
corruption or oppression. Or it may be the vileness 
of public sentiment crucifying Jesus or crushing by vio- 
lence a Socrates, a Jeremiah, a Stephen, a Paul, a Huss, 
or a Savonarola. 

To communities and nations these crises bring either 
revolution or overthrow. " Revolutions never go back- 
ward " is a true saying only because wickedness, even in 
prosperity and dominance, works its own defeat, while 
the data of faith and the self-sustained resources of love 
persist. Such crises must be Hraited or far reaching in 
proportion as the issue is developed in greater or 
smaller forms of collective Hfe. That faith gains, and 
selfishness loses, essentially, in every revolution implies 
that the antagonism is widening in area. 

That revolutions never go backward evinces also the 
progressive tendency of the race toward the ultimate 
triumph of love and the final failure and defeat of evil. 
Progress from the segregation and antagonism which 
have prevailed by reason of selfishness toward harmony 
and love among peoples foreshadows the ultimate com- 
munity of interest and association of all the nations of 
the earth. The common weal will embrace, not only 
the people of one tongue or land, but the entire popu- 
lation of our planet at the time. This result will be the 
necessary result of that age-long struggle between love 
and selfishness, upon their respective merits or demerits, 
in which love, based upon faith, will have amplified 
human freedom and harmony, and the aggressive ben- 
evolence of exalted individual and national character will 
have gathered up as one the interests of all men. Upon 
this wide arena selfishness will doubtless make long and 
stubborn contention for persistence. But here, more 



THE SOLUTION OP EVIL. 239 

than ever before, the divergence between society- 
based on love and that based upon selfishness must 
become sharply discriminated, their antagonism recog- 
nized and actively pressed on all hands, — the righteous 
unequivocal in righteousness, the wicked implacably, 
violently wicked. This supreme crisis of human history 
must come. 

The demonstrated merit of love in human progress 
will leave no pretext or ruse for selfishness ; the selfish 
must choose selfishness in undisguised self-degradation. 
The demonstrated failure and turpitude of selfishness 
must expose its devotees to universal shame and 
contempt. 

This culmination is not only the relentless behest of 
ontology, but the common goal of all the forces, social, 
pohtical, commercial, and religious, which have shaped 
and continue to shape human history. 

Each of these crises, domestic, national, or of the 
entire population of the earth, is an epoch of adjudica- 
tion, a conscious realization of results, the beginning of 
a harvest to which former sowing and growth have led up. 

If results could show that a finite person and commu- 
nities of finite persons realize a higher and better deter- 
mination by selfish devotement than they can by 
supreme devotion to that true, that ideal life which is 
implicit in their natural conditions, then selfishness 
might win for itself a valid right to exist as the supreme 
devotement of personal being ; win a valid standing as 
self-determining action ; and become a self-conscious 
excellence. 

But since selfishness in even its greatest prosperity 
fails of self-conscious excellence, the universe is without 
the consciousness that evil has a right to exist. 



240 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

This has become more definite as society has pro- 
gressed. Further, since selfish action increases the 
Hmitations of dependent persons and decreases the 
scope and power of their self-determination, thereby re- 
ducing their freedom and sinking them toward complete 
dependence ; since it despoils them of susceptibility to 
progressive motives, sinks them in degrading affections 
and desires, rendering them mutually destructive in their 
ambition ; since it reduces individuals and communities 
to conditions in which existence is but a doubtful good, 
or positively worse than non-being ; since, in a word, it 
proves only degrading and disastrous, it is not only a 
self-conscious failure and must perish, but a self-con- 
scious crime, a universal outlaw, and deserves to perish. 
The m.agnitude of the interests which it thwarts and of 
the motives against which it offends, render it conscious 
of the degree of its turpitude. 

This is the true ■' survival of the fittest," ■ — a survival 
which illustrates that love, perfect action, is the fittest ; 
that it is self-persistent and must survive evermore ; and 
that its qualities, hohness, or pure intention, truth, and 
righteousness, constitute the fittest personal character ; 
and each crisis but illustrates the faith which cancels 
selfishness, and trusts love and its qualities to realize the 
highest good because they are, in themselves, the fittest. 
The '-' survival of the fittest" is only another phrasing of 
what the sacred Scriptures term " the judgment." 
Either phrasing embraces, essentially, three ideas : crisis, 
criterion, and retribution, or change of conditions. 
Judgment necessarily implies authority, — natural, basal, 
intrinsic authority ; and this is the authority of an inde- 
pendent criterion. It is independent, not because of 
power to destroy, but because of its power to be perfect. 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 241 

because of qualitative perfection. It is authoritative be- 
cause perfect, fittest because of perfect quality, of perfect 
quality because it is perfect action, perfectly adjusted 
being. It cannot be affirmed the fittest because it pro- 
duces the greatest possible good or pleasure, as the utili- 
tarian or agnostic would say. None but the infinite mind 
perceives what can produce the greatest possible good 
or pleasure. With finite minds this is altogether a matter 
of inference and faith. It is faith in God, as perfection, 
which leads the faithful man to expect that love will yield 
the highest possible good. The proof of his faith he 
finds, not in grasping a knowledge of the highest good, 
but in the effect of faith upon his inner hfe, affording per- 
fection of intention, and progress in self-determination., 
And now, in the final crisis of a community which em- 
braces earth's entire population, the wreck of evil society 
again demonstrates that selfishness is not only not the 
fittest, but that it is wholly unfit to exist, and hence never 
had a right to exist. And at the same time it is demon- 
strated that of all the forces and qualities ever known to 
man, love, based on faith in God, as the perfect, is self- 
persistent, self- progressive, self-perfecting. It actuahzes 
the ideal community. 

Thus, on the earth, motivity to selfishness will be ulti- 
mately abolished. Human love, purified and exalted 
upon the basis of faith in God, will have developed the 
ideal community for this earth. Faithful society in its 
progress will more keenly apprehend, more strikingly 
perceive and interact with the activities of God's all- 
conditioning love. With this will have been regained 
the true and highest use of their environment. No mo- 
tivity to evil can survive this solution. No motive, 
nothing but obdurate aversion to holiness, fixed unsus- 

16 



242 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

ceptibility to truth and right, self-determined limitation 
to selfish motives, can remain as incitement to evil. 
This does not necessarily imply that the whole mass, 
or even a large proportion, of earthly society will have 
become faithful. The impHcation is that such will have 
been the progress determined upon these opposite lines, 
love and selfishness, that however large or small their 
numbers, the respective parties will have become so 
widely differentiated that the excellence of one and the 
worthlessness and turpitude of the other will strip sel- 
fishness of all motivity, and hence of all power to tempt 
the innocent and ignorant. Those who maintain evil 
society must do so upon no pretence but incorrigible 
aversion to love and devotion to selfishness. Hence 
their retribution must ensue. 

The breaking-up of selfish society must naturally 
result. Selfishness, now all-dominating, openly pro- 
nounced and socially isolated, its followers must be 
without the restraints of good society among themselves, 
but like a den of beasts or fiends are left to mutual 
degradation and destruction. 

Further, supernatural conditions may now develop 
their full force. This final divergence of society will 
have been reached upon the basis of supernatural con- 
ditions which have supplemented or republished the 
data of faith by the Christ-revelation of the facts, — the 
being, the independent supremacy, the holiness, and the 
benevolence of God. These conditions have been abused 
and perverted to the ends of this final incorrigibility. 
Hence we are carried by ontological implication to the 
fulfilment of the seer's vision of the explicit immanence 
or perceivable presence of the Christ, the glory of whose 
coming shall consume the wicked. 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 243 

Although human perversions had dimmed these data 
of faith as naturally revealed in the human conscious- 
ness of dependent Hfe, reason, conscience, and will, 
they have been re-established supernaturally " as a wit- 
ness unto all nations ; " and now in the culmination of 
their full development they constitute the forces which 
are as necessarily retributive to selfish society as the 
white heat of the refiner's furnace is resolvent to reject 
and cast out the dross. 

This is the final revolution of social conditions, the 
final disaster to organized selfishness among men. In- 
dividual defection may possibly arise among men after 
this revolution which leaves all social organization har- 
monious and morally pure. But the social conditions 
upon which such defection shall arise must imply that 
it will soon run its course and doubly emphasize the 
failure and crime of selfishness. Thus upon the social 
conditions afforded by divine love, self-Hmitation and 
self-defeat will rid the earth of selfish society. 

(c) Individual retribution, hke racial and social, is 
simply a revolution of personal conditions brought 
about by individual use or abuse of those conditions. 
It is not to be thought as a resentful infliction which 
God may arbitrarily impose or withhold, but as a result 
which must be implied in a collision with love, the 
nature of the all-conditioning God. 

The decay and disaster which befall families, peoples, 
nations, and the race, as such, do not involve, necessa- 
rily, the personal retribution of individuals, except to the 
extent of their relations to these collective bodies. 
Many innocent and many positively righteous individ- 
uals, such as children, parents, creditors, or citizens, 
suffer in the wreck of those collective relations, but not 



244 -^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

in the fortunes of individual character. Many noble 
lives are burdened and physically and mentally limited 
by the abuses of former generations, but individual 
faith or a pure intention is not thereby prevented. Yet 
the decay or overthrow of collective associations illus- 
trates the same principle which must obtain in the indi- 
vidual relation to all-conditioning love. The downfall 
of Rome, " childless and crownless in her voiceless 
woe," and the despair of the pleasure-seeker, the infidel 
scoffer, or the man of either crude or cultured selfish- 
ness, alike incapable of faith, are subject to the same 
retributive principle. The main difference between 
man's retribution in his collective capacities and that of 
individual concern is that the dissolution of collective 
organizations, as such, is the end of their collective 
self-determination, and hence concludes their retribu- 
tion ; while individuals retain their self-determining 
power in the midst of social and even physical dissolu- 
tion. Either they are capable of a yet unrealized ideal 
life, or their selfishness is not yet satisfied or repented. 
Hence the change of their racial or social conditions is 
not an interruption of their personal being. 

A future state of individual relation to God and the 
universe persists in our thought. It is not necessary to 
elaborate an argument here on a future state. For of 
course if there be no future life for man our solution 
of evil is complete with racial and social retribution. 
Many reasons, aside from revelation, have been given 
for behef in a future state, but usually the essential rea- 
son is overlooked. It is as follows : — 

Love implies a future state for persons. We readily 
see that when the Creator posits the existence of a per- 
son he conditions a self-determining power, and commits 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 245 

himself in honor and truth to the maintenance of these 
conditions as long as that self-determination exists. And 
although this self-determining being may revolutionize 
those conditions in relation to himself and render them 
retributive, they must continue as long as he can deter- 
mine their use or abuse. Since from the beginning of 
man's sinful self-determination love's conditioning action 
has been placed at his service it cannot be withdrawn 
while he entertains a self-determining purpose concerning 
it. He must upon these conditions be permitted to work 
out that purpose so long as he is conscious of ir. We 
say *' must " for the reason that creative love cannot be 
thought to draw back from any possible result to which 
it is committed by the original choice to condition the 
existence of persons. Love's conditioning action is put 
into their hands by virtue of affording them personality ; 
and hence their self-determination must be permitted to 
work out its purpose. By creating free beings love sub- 
mitted to their proof of its possible worst as well as its 
possible best. If, in the lowest depths of self-degrada- 
tion, a dependent person can develop aught which im- 
peaches love's purity, truth, or goodness, aught which 
indorses or connives at selfishness or v/rong, aught of 
essential imperfection, then love is impeached through- 
out. Its right to create or morally dominate a universe 
is fairly disputed, its morally authoritative basis for per- 
sonal determination is exploded ; and selfishness has 
gained standing-ground as a principle upon which per- 
sonal character may be rightfully determined. To cre- 
ate beings of conditioned self-determination implies the 
continuance of the conditions as long as that determina- 
tion is self-conscious, whether it be in moral harmony 
or disharmony with the conditioning action. The same 



246 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, 



principles upon which the evolution of love conditions 
the continuance of a race of self-determining sinners in 
this life are those upon which it must continue to con- 
dition their sinful self-determination, notwithstanding 
physical dissolution. 

Moreover, in the case of the faithful, physical dissolu- 
tion finds them in essential harmony with divine love 
and in process of progressive self-determination. In 
many cases, too, their conscious steadfastness in love 
and aversion to evil have been achieved. Such has 
been the trial of their faith that subjection of the actual 
to the ideal life has become habitual with them long 
before death ; it has been the high standpoint from 
which they have performed their duties and endured 
their ills. One who could say of his actual life, '' One 
thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and 
stretching forward to the things which are before, I press 
on toward the goal, unto the prize of the high calling of 
God," is entirely philosophic when, summoned to exe- 
cution, he says : " Henceforth there is laid up for me a 
crown of righteousness." The confidence of Socrates 
was not a mere fancy, but the conscious persistence of 
a life of devotion to the ideal, which led him to say to 
his weeping friends, '' You may dispose of my body as 
you like, but I shall be with the gods." The divine 
philosophy, as expressed in view of persecution for 
righteousness' sake, is, " He that hateth his life in this 
world shall keep it unto life eternal." 

We have seen in a former chapter that the self-deter- 
mined freedom, harmony, and security of the universe 
are the essential quahties of its perfection and the con- 
ditions to the highest good which love can evolve. 
Hence the persons who in this life have achieved these 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. j^^ 

qualities, or are in a way to determine them, are among 
the agents who alone can actually accomplish the pur- 
pose of the universe. Personality which has attained 
these qualities, or is in an attitude to attain them, and 
has, by physical death, cast off the physical heritage of 
racial abuses, has simply gained the starting-point for 
untrammelled personal progress. And so long as the 
innocent and the faithful who must determine the uni- 
verse can amplify their personal being, can determine 
a higher development, can aspire to a yet unreahzed 
ideal self or attain a higher good, love, the nature of 
that action which conditions their being, implies their 
immortality. This is but the process of realizing the 
divine altruism ; which, being based upon the perfect 
altruistic freedom of God, is the limitless measure of 
universal good. 

At what time in an individual career conscious self- 
determination may first arise, it is difficult, if not im- 
possible to detect. But when it does arise it is the 
beginning of the individual use of one's personal nature, 
the actual discrimination of individual from racial life. 
There are times when the farmer says he can " almost 
see the corn growing," but there are processes of growth 
which even the microscope cannot detect. So also 
we can definitely observe evidences of conscious self- 
determination in infants, but this cannot be assumed 
to indicate their earliest conscious individuality or will. 
Preceding this rise of self-determination the infant can- 
not be thought to have developed any but racial life. 
Not having exerted an act of self-determination, it does 
not become conscious of individual identity, or selfhood. 
Hence, should physical death take place, which is simply 
a form of racial retribution, a catastrophe to race con- 



248 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



ditions, it suffers no individual retribution. Indeed, we 
know of no implication or datum, of any kind, upon 
which we can say that such infancy can survdve physical 
death, can live in a future state. 

After self-determining action is once begun, however 
faintly, the personal nature is individuahzed, and indi- 
vidual self-consciousness takes its rise, and retains per- 
sonal identity through all subsequent changes ; until, by 
self-determined abuse of the personal nature it may be 
sunken in complete self-limitation and ultimately lost. 
The rise and earlier development of personality is doubt- 
less in accordance with circumstances and instinctive im- 
pulses, and trusts its conditions with entire sincerity. This 
is the faith of childhood ; and it maintains the innocence 
of childhood, although the circumstances and impulses 
upon which it acts may have been depraved by ancestry 
and social factors. Its debased racial conditions may 
impose upon it disease, feebleness, defective physical 
organization, or death ; and social surroundings may 
afford it little but villanous incitements. Yet the im- 
plicit sincerity with which it personally acts in accordance 
with these conditions is an innocent, yes, virtuous, use 
of its personal nature, and determines its character as 
one of innocent and virtuous intention. Not until it is 
sufficiently advanced to deliberately and of purpose 
reject pure intention and adopt selfish intention does it 
abuse its personal conditions or form corrupt character. 
Hence, if retribution in its racial or social conditions 
overtake it while in this character of individual inno- 
cence, it must be thought to persist in a future state as 
an innocent person of morally pure intention. It takes 
rank with that class of beings whose further develop- 
ment will be in the absence of temptation, who " do 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 240 

always behold the face of God, " who must depend upon 
environment for consciousness of moral security until it 
is acquired by association with those whose conscious 
security has been self determined ^' through much 
tribulation." 

When a child is sufficiently advanced in a knowledge 
of his conditions to recognize the moral criterion of 
intentions in conscience, he may then have a self- 
conscious faith ; he may then determine to subject him- 
self to what he understands to be true ; and may feel, as 
a result, that this faith purifies or keeps pure his inten- 
tions as he advances upon an ever-widening scope of 
self-determination. Although he may not grasp a logi- 
cal definition of faith, yet just as surely does he enact 
*' the subjection of the actual to the ideal ; " and just as 
surely does he cancel selfishness and lovingly determine 
himself toward spiritual harmony, freedom, and security. 

On the other hand, a child at this stage of personal 
advancement may begin a deliberate rejection of 
conscience and faith ; and in case death intervenes, his 
appearance in a future state must be thought that of 
a person suffering individual retribution. His conscious- 
ness of the magnitude of his motives to good, which he 
has rejected, must be the measure of his retribution. 

In adults, individual persistence in a selfish Hfe may 
be, in many cases, but an idle or undiscriminating 
drifting with circumstances. And it may thus take the 
form of a merely racial life or result in the ultimate 
sinking of personal consciousness into the helpless 
dependence of a mere thing. This view assumes that 
there are persons who are so entirely content with the 
bare satisfaction of physical needs, and whose interest 
in existence is so far below the normal aspirations of a 



250 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



child that they fail to discriminate themselves as other 
than parts of a common herd. They live and die with- 
out reflection as to any definite purpose of individual 
life or destiny. This may be largely owing to circum- 
stances and their weakness to rise above circumstances, 
even to the extent of asserting individual responsibility 
of any kind or degree. Though they may have felt at 
some time the assertion of conscience, yet this has 
been so habitually yielded to the behest of circum- 
stances that it is practically swamped. 

The consciousness of guilt in such persons must be 
very faint, and the consciousness of moral sincerity 
equally indefinite. They seem conscious of nothing 
which could be termed self-determination except a 
weak surrender to natural impulse as dominated by 
circumstances. Personality is surrendered during racial 
life j and racial life yielded in physical death. The 
opportunity of personal determination, like the talent 
hid in the ground, is soon taken away and they perish. 

If one live merely a racial life he lives only as a brute 
lives, and his may be termed a brute life. The essen- 
tial difference between brute hfe and personal life is 
that a brute lives for its nature, a person lives for a 
mode of hfe which he can build upon his nature ; using 
his nature as means and condidons by which to deter- 
mine its qualiues. The sum of these quahties is char- 
acter. By persistence in this action he fixes his 
character, or quahty, of life upon so much of his nature 
as does not perish in the using. This modified nature 
becomes the means for the further development of 
character ; and thus, eventually, self-determination may 
realize perfect conditioned personality. Brute hfe is 
living for his nature, to follow its impulses and make 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 25 1 

the satisfaction of its desires the object of life. While 
this is, perhaps, the most crude form of incorrigible 
selfishness it is readily eliminated by self-limitation and 
self-defeat. 

There are other classes of persons whose selfishness 
is a living for their nature in its intellectually higher 
and more ambitious propensions. Nevertheless, they 
live for their nature as an end, ignoring that it is but 
the means for a higher type of life which they may 
superadd, and into which all of their nature which does 
not perish with the using should be incorporated. 
Many of this class give a quasi recognition to the facts 
disclosed in their natures, and which afford a basis for 
faith, — such as the perceived facts of being and de- 
pendence, and the implied fact of the independent, 
which we cannot get rid of, and also self-love, reason, 
and conscience. They harbor also an expectation to 
act, sometime, in accordance with these data of faith. 
But living in present neglect of the great object of 
personal life, they devote themselves to the immediate 
satisfactions of natural appetite, passion, and propension. 
Though they may be highly intelligent and often pos- 
sess great will-force, their life is only a highly endowed 
animalism. This for the reason that they are devoted 
to the satisfying of their present selves, and are rejecting 
the true, the ideal self which their reason and con- 
science tell them they ought to actualize. Their char- 
acter is deliberately self-determined selfishness ; and, 
consequently, the intervention of physical death re- 
moves them hence with characters of uncorrected sin. 
Dying without having actualized their " quasi expecta- 
tion " to "sometime," as a matter of convenience, turn 
to repentance and faith, they must be thought to have 



25^ 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



entered upon a future state of retribution. Obdurately 
impenitent while enjoying immunity from retribution, 
their quasi intention to sometime reform for conveni- 
ence' sake is only a selfish forecast which can never be 
capable of faith. It is simply a form of moral 
incorrigibility. 

Incorrigible selfishness definitely purposed is brought 
about by habitually putting aside the authority of con- 
science, diverting the attention from it, and thus deter- 
mining fixed unsusceptibility to motives of faith and 
love. The person who can choose to continue in 
selfishness at any stage or reject love in any degree of 
its incentives, is capable of persisting also in his 
choice of selfishness, and rejecting love at that stage 
when he knows that the one is wholly false and the 
other true. This is total, moral incorrigibility, the 
total abuse of his conditions. Thus continuance in 
sin until the incorrigible stage is reached is clearly 
practicable. 

Prior to this, even when the false tendency of sin and 
the true tendency of love are perceived, he must 
abandon the one and adopt the other, or else must 
deliberately choose antagonism to love. Persistence in 
this choice determines his perversion of the conditions 
of individual faith and must estabhsh in his nature a 
fixed aversion to love. If, in the experience or observa- 
tion of any individual, community, or age, fixed indif- 
ference to the moral behest of love has been reached, 
there can be no motivity to their self-determination, 
except the desire of selfish satisfaction. 

This indifference is wholly a matter of purposed, 
practical infidelity, — infidelity to the true, and positive 
aversion to holiness and God. To this aversion the 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 253 

undeviating activities of love which condition him must 
be a constant offence ; and in changed circumstances, 
when he can no longer make all-conditioning love serve 
his selfishness, it must be to him torture. 

Selfishness, for the reason that it is self-love in dero- 
gation of self-perfection and the perfection of others, 
finds its supreme object of aversion in God. Nor can 
such a person repent his selfishness from any other mo- 
tive than its unpleasurable results ; and this, of course, 
is not moral repentance at all, has in it no moral contri- 
tion, has no motive but selfishness. That a person thus 
selfishly determined will regret his disaster cannot be 
doubted, but selfish motivity to this regret can never 
work moral purifying. He is still morally incorrigible. 

Previous to a retributive change of conditions selfish 
motives may be appealed to for the purpose of arousing 
attention to the moral enormity of sin. This is possible 
so long as the authority of conscience is not discarded, 
and may incite to genuine repentance. But to a person 
in whom selfishness has reached the point of self- 
determined indifference to the data of faith, especially 
the demand of conscience, there can be no remedial or 
recovering conditions. 

Future Probation. — The question arises at this point 
whether persons, after having, by physical death, under- 
gone racial retribution, must, by necessary implication 
of love, find themselves subject to individual retri- 
bution. Or may they not continue in probationary 
conditions, individually, notwithstanding physical death 
has removed them from the racial and social conditions 
of this life? Or, again, may all-conditioning love imply 
individual probation in a future state ? 

The answer to this question cannot include the case 



2^4 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

of children or multitudes of adults, who, innocent of self- 
determined rejection of love, have passed into a future 
life of development in the " presence of God." Doubt- 
less these will occupy conditions to development, but 
not in a sense that implies the moral possibility of failure 
or defection. Their conditions will be those of over- 
whelming motives to love and entire absence of tempta- 
tion to evil, because associated with the innocent and 
the faithful, and freed from corrupt racial and social 
conditions. But such conditions will afford no proving 
by self-determined conquest of their natural susceptibihty 
to selfishness ; nor can such conditions yield a con- 
sciousness of moral security as against supposable temp- 
tation to sin, except as such consciousness may be 
eventually acquired by association with those who have 
through discipline of evil determined their own security. 
It has been urged : If the children go to the " pres- 
ence of God" directly, why does not God have them all 
die, and thus end human propagation in the sinful con- 
ditions of this life ? This is equivalent to asking : Why 
have a human race at all ? The answer to all this is : 
The evolution of that ultimate security in personal 
harmony and freedom which is essential to the perfection 
of the universe can be attained only by the develop- 
ment of an unsusceptibility to selfishness by the determi- 
nation of finite persons themselves. The self-elimination 
of one's susceptibility to evil is requisite to a perfect 
personality, and hence to the perfect universe. Ab- 
sence of temptations or incitements to evil may secure 
the harmony of innocent or unfallen beings, but it can- 
not develop the highest order of moral character, for the 
reason that susceptibility to evil temptation may remain 
in them ; at least, they can have no consciousness of 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 



255 



perfect security in themselves, as against possible temp- 
tation. To this class of persons may belong angels 
who have ever '' kept their first estate, " and children 
who die and enter upon association with angels, who 
'' always behold the face of God," before they have 
consciously renounced their sense of dependence and 
rejected the authority of conscience. But these alone, 
and in these conditions, can never realize a perfect finite 
being or universe. Perfect harmony of persons can be 
reahzed only by beings of perfect moral freedom ; and 
perfect moral freedom can be realized only in conscious- 
ness of perfect moral security ; and this security can 
be realized only by the self-elimination or neutralization 
of personal susceptibihty to selfishness ; and this sus- 
ceptibihty can be eHminated only by the person himself 
in confirmed faith and love. 

Angels, infants, and innocent heathen may see and 
associate with the faithful who have determined their 
own security, and may thus themselves ultimately attain 
to a like security. This is not probation, however, but 
is only their development into this unsusceptibility by 
observation and association and sympathy with the 
faithful, who constitute the nucleus and main body of 
the perfect universe by having determined their own 
conscious security against selfishness. 

But we return to the question : Is a future state 
necessarily one of individual retribution? That retribu- 
tion is a revolutionary change of conditions, we have 
already seen. That physical death is such a change, 
not only of race conditions but also of social and indi- 
vidual environment, must be admitted. Now, must pas- 
sage into a future state imply a loss of all conditions to 
personal correction and recovery to the individual who 



256 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



has been unrepentant or incorrigible in this hfe ? We 
do not aim here to give an extended argument ; es- 
pecially is it aside from the method of this work to invoke 
Scriptural exposition. Our answer must aim to give the 
implications of love which, at this stage of its evolution, 
are decisive of the question. 

We have seen that love, in creating dependent per- 
sons, requires that the rise of their personality must be 
conditioned at the lowest point at which progressive 
self-determination is possible. Now, if this racial and 
social Hfe affords the lowest and easiest conditions which 
all-conditioning love can posit for the rise, progress, and 
perfection of finite persons, then the debasement of in- 
dividual life in these conditions must be thought such 
a debasement as to be totally unsusceptible to any con- 
ditions to personal improvement which love can ever 
afford. To those who have perverted and debased 
these lowest conditions of personal development physi- 
cal death must be thought a change which renders them 
conscious of c'ondidons more desperate and hopeless. 
By no line of reasoning can we conclude that the abuse 
of our present nature can result in an improved, more 
susceptible, future nature. And if individuals continue 
to debase these conditions which are most favorable to 
progressive motives, perverting them from the moral 
susceptibility of childhood innocence to self-determined 
depravity, death must be to them a change to a rad- 
ical and hopeless maladjustment toward love and God. 

The present bodily conditions must be thought requi- 
site means by which man begins and in this life con- 
tinues his personal interaction with divine love, whether 
that love be naturally or supernaturally disclosed. By 
these means he is able to enter upon the lowest condi- 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 257 

tions of faith ; and, upon faith, he becomes able to love 
God and determines himself in harmony with God. If 
physical death takes place at any point in the process 
of this innocent or faithful self-determination he con- 
tinues in harmonious interaction with God, notwithstand- 
ing the falling away of bodily conditions. He must be 
classed with disembodied persons who are in either in- 
nocent or faithful harmony with love in the future state. 
But if, while in these bodily conditions, he has deter- 
mined himself selfishly he must be thought as not only 
out of harmony with love, but as morally below the 
lowest form of faith. As long as he is in possession of 
bodily conditions he has contact with the means of cor- 
rection and recovery to the lowest stage of faith ; and 
may begin again the process of faithful self-determina- 
tion. But, if physical death supervenes when, by sel- 
fishness, he is sunken to the lowest point at which faith 
may arise, he is left without means or conditions of cor- 
rection and recovery to the lowest form of faith. He 
must be thought a disembodied person to whom faith 
is out of reach ; hence, incapable of corrective chastise- 
ment and harmonization with love. If the lowest form 
of progressive interaction with divine love, in this life, 
requires these bodily conditions, certainly a lower form 
cannot be posited without them. There is no need of 
talking about any means of moral purifying or develop- 
ment other than faith ; and if the lowest forms of faith 
can arise only upon those conditions which divine love 
affords as the lowest upon which personal determination 
may arise, it is clear that the lowest forms of faith are 
impossible without those conditions. And it is exactly 
those conditions which physical death removes. As 
long as he is in this body, aided by its needs and its 

17 



258 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



racial and social sympathies of faith and love, as also by 
the direct incarnation of divine love in Christ, he has 
contact with the conditions to spiritual recovery. But, 
disembodied, this bridge between his self-degraded spirit 
and the condidons to faith and love is gone. 

" But if a supernatural intervention, as in Christ, 
avails to give renewed conditions of faith to depraved 
men in this life, may not love imply further supernat- 
ural revelations which may in a future world condi- 
tion saving faith to those, at least, who have died 
unrepentant?" 

This plausible question is neutralized by the following 
considerations, namely : It is based upon a miscon- 
ception of the Christ revelation ; which sought, not the 
obdurate, but the ignorant and degraded. Secondly, 
he who has determined positive aversion to faith in 
himself has no susceptibility which any revelation can 
incite to spiritual reform. When, by racial defilement 
and social perversion the natural motives to individual 
faith have been obscured from those who are yet suscep- 
tible, supernatural interposition reiterates them. These 
motives to faith, always implicit in man's nature, are the 
grounds upon which mankind always praise or blame 
each other. They are never replaced as motives to 
moral purifying. No supposed revelation which ignores 
them can make good its claim to divine origin. What 
were the ancient disclosures of Jehovah, the indepen- 
dent, holy and gracious, or guiding the retributive storm 
of abuse and revolutionized conditions, but the reiteration 
of these data of faith ? What were the words and works of 
Christ, but reminders of the dependence of man and the 
independence of truth, moral authority, and merciful 
solicitude of God? All supernatural revelation has its 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 259 

value in maintaining man's recognition of these motives 
to faith. 

Moreover, if supernatural intervention to renew and 
intensify the motivity to faith in this life is a fact it 
implies a negative answer to the above question. If, in 
a future state, better conditions to faith may be had by 
the selfish, then all supernatural revelation in this world, 
including the ministry and atonement of Christ, are 
superfluous and are discredited. The incarnation of 
God in Christ, assuming our racial and social conditions 
as a medium of contact with our race, implies that these 
are essential to condition saving faith. When physical 
death removes our bodily conditions this medium is lost. 
The evolution of love had doubtless developed the 
conditions to individual self-determination in their 
essential order; and if self-determination has sunken 
the person's susceptibility beneath the lowest, simplest 
and most direct conditions to faith he cannot be thought 
more susceptible to them in the more advanced stages 
of that evolution. 

Obdurate selfishness in this Hfe, as against these con- 
ditions, sinks the personal susceptibility to them and 
establishes aversion toward them. Hence it renders 
the person incapable of corrective probation, though 
heaven and hell were perceptibly open before him. 
The chasm between his self-determined unsusceptibility 
to the ideal and the higher conditions to the reahzation 
of an ideal life must be thought impassable. It is the 
enlightened selfishness of this world that is the most 
obdurate. Those who are selfish amidst the most 
highly intellectual perceptions of the ideal are the most 
incapable of faith. This incapability is owing to the 
widened chasm between their intelligent discrimination 



26o THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

of an ideal life and their sunken susceptibility to its 
motives, induced by selfish determination. Those who 
are not won to a life of faith when young rarely are 
when old, — owing to the widened discrepancy between 
their debased susceptibilities and the motives to faith. 
The discrepancy between the selfish affections of the 
obdurate and love's higher disclosures in the future is a 
chasm which our thought cannot bridge. Nothing but 
an undebatable revelation from God can afford ground 
for a belief that it is possible. 

Hence we find no ground upon which to hope, 
much less affirm, possible conditions in a future state in 
which the impenitent of this present hfe may become 
susceptible to motives to faith and love. But as their 
selfish life has narrowed the scope of their moral free- 
dom, increased their hmitations, and diminished their 
personality, we can neither affirm nor hope anything 
better for them than a gradual, though appalling, agoniz- 
ing process of the sinking of personality until personal, 
perhaps all consciousness is lost. As surely as love is 
love, it implies that the conditions of this life are the 
most favorable to man's laying hold of eternal life. 
And the incarnation of God in Christ implies that 
these conditions are necessary to human salvation by 
faith. To sink himself below their reach is to perish. 

The process of self-limitation. — This fact which marks 
selfish life is implied in conditioned personality. The 
progressive nature which love has afforded to all con- 
ditioned persons, and which by innocent self-determina- 
tion gives rise to individual self-consciousness, followed 
by conscious enlargement of freedom while faithful deter- 
mination continues, is reversed and undone by selfish 
determination. The process of self-limitation closes in 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 26 1 

Upon the will like the fabled prison-walls which, ample at 
first, shrank until they crushed the prisoner in their em- 
brace. Step by step the conditions to self-determination 
have been wasted by abuse, and now it abides only as 
a fixed, stolid sentiment of personal malevolence, power- 
less to do aught but nurse its self-consuming hatred. 

The sinking of personality in a future state is a plain 
imphcation of love, and is manifested in the same sink- 
ing process which is begun in this present life. It is 
not to be thought a positive infliction, but a result which 
is implied in the nature of dependent personality. It is 
brought about by the dependent person himself, by his 
narrowing the scope of his self-determining freedom, 
— by ignoring the independent truth, right, and good 
which God represents. All determination of his life in 
harmony with these infinite motives to faith is inter- 
cepted. Moreover, his susceptibility to them is destroyed. 
Selfishness, even in its most amiable or imposing ex- 
ternal form, is nothing better than personal devotion to 
racial and social conditions, either in their use or abuse. 
In their use it is personal devotion to no motive except 
those which are temporal. It ignores those which are 
eternal, and consequently abuses personal conditions by 
subjecting them to that which is beneath essential per- 
sonality. Having, like Dives, sought his " good things " 
in this world, he has sunken his personality beneath all 
capability for the good things of a future state. In their 
abuse, he not only subjects his personal conditions to 
his racial and social interests, but to these in the most 
insignificant and brute-like form, making the incidental 
pleasures the objects of his pursuit. He thus not only 
subjects his personal determination to racial and social 
enjoyment, but to the most limited scope of these con- 



262 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

ditions. By subjecting his mental and moral capabilities 
to the behests of appetite, passion, avarice, — indeed, 
selfishness in any and all forms, — he becomes their 
prisoner. As a man by physical and mental abuses 
limits his physical and mental capabilities, so by the 
abuse of his entire nature, he imposes hmitations upon 
himself which close in upon his will on all sides. His 
self-love having become wholly selfishness finds no scope 
for self-determination, except in the gratification of its 
means and instruments. Having rendered himself un- 
susceptible to any but selfish motives, he is incapable of 
determining himself unselfishly, even when disaster over- 
whelms him with the consciousness of disharmony with 
all his conditions. Having made himself the slave of 
perverted circumstances, he has become wholly depend- 
ent upon them for satisfaction. Now that they are 
exhausted, their absence leaves him a morbid embodi- 
ment of selfish desire. The tide of earthly circumstances 
over which he might have directed his course to a happy 
port, but upon which he chose to float idly or to play 
the pirate upon the common welfare, avoiding every 
port, now leaves him stranded on an unexplored and 
uncongenial shore. 

Self-determined aversion to love has positive self-con- 
sciousness within him. The respects in which progressive 
determination has been afforded him by the gracious 
conditions of his earthly life were, devotion to a perfect 
personal life, a perfect universe, and companionship with a 
perfect God, — either implying the others. He has re- 
jected them all. Now that he has established aversion 
to love in himself, his woe is not only the loss of pro- 
gressive personality, substituted by an established process 
of self-limitation, but the torture of existence amidst the 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 



263 



prevalence of a perfecting universe and a perfect God. 
The spirit of perfectness, the " Holy Spirit," present to 
his consciousness, — but which he had evaded, rejected, 
despised, hated, blasphemed, while it sought to woo him, 
— is now the all-pervading atmosphere of love in which 
he writhes with agonizing aversion. 

How long the process of the sinking of personality 
may continue is a question which we have no exact data 
from which to answer. The relative persistence of differ- 
ent persons in the agony of perishing by self-limitation 
is implied in the nature of personality. One's personal 
self-consciousness must be thought persistent in pro- 
portion as his selfish purpose is definitely determined. 
Hence selfish personality, in its most elaborate determi- 
nation, may be expected to cling to its purpose longest, 
and therefore persist longest in the agony of the perish- 
ing process. " He shall be beaten with many stripes." 
But all-conditioning love cannot be affirmed to continue 
the personal nature in conscious torture after the con- 
sciousness of self-determination is lost. 

Thus the ultimate extinction of the personal con- 
sciousness of the obdurate is implied in the nature of 
personality and the evolution of love, — 

I St. In the complete self-limitation and sinking of 
selfish personality by the uncorrected abuse of all-con- 
ditioning love. 

2d. In the realization of the perfect universe, the com- 
panionship of the finite with the infinite, in undisturbed 
harmony, freedom, and security. In all this conflict be- 
tween love and selfishness, love has been nothing other 
than all-embracing, all-conditioning love ; but, antago- 
nized, outraged, blasphemed, perverted, a consuming fire. 
(This question is considered further in " Eschatology.") 



264 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

The self-determined wreck of evil by the sinking of 
the personality of the impenitent will demolish all ob- 
jective motivity to selfishness. This utmost demonstra- 
tion of selfishness, establishing a universal conviction of 
its utter worthlessness and entire turpitude, must abol- 
ish its power and place in the realm of motivity. It 
must fix in all minds a total aversion to selfishness. It 
must fill all with a changeless, unqualified conviction 
that love alone is perfect action, infinite in uncondi- 
tioned egoism, eternal in exhaustless altruism. Limitless 
benevolence realizes a perfect objective exposition of the 
perfect altruistic freedom of God. This is the '* glory 
of God." It must inspire in each finite person a self- 
love so firmly devoted to the reahzation of love's ideal of 
their personal life as to render them forever unsusceptible 
to selfishness. No motives to induce the innocent to 
sin can survive this solution. No motives but such as 
love discloses can arise in the universal consciousness. 

That a progressive universe conditioned in ignorance, 
weakness, temptation, and mercy, is the only conceiv- 
able ideal universe, has been sufficiently set out. That 
such progressive universe is by its nature exposed to 
error, sin, and sorrow, is fully recognized. That error, 
sin, and sorrow, must be possible to any personal uni- 
verse which is fit to be created is an unavoidable con- 
clusion. The divine choice to create is vindicated in 
its holiness and benevolence. We have seen the glori- 
ous aim, a holy, loving, good, free, and secure compan- 
ionship of finite with infinite being. We have more 
than hinted that this companionship is but the founda- 
tion for wider and nobler realization of the possibilities 
of being, and that the eternal range of progressive 
development, conditioned in harmony, freedom, and 



THE SOLUTION OF EVIL. 



265 



security, will be but the perpetual realization of the 
Creator's ideal. The reahzation of this ideal vindicates 
the action which conditioned the long, weary curse of 
sin that obtained in preliminary stages ; vindicates it by 
having afforded holy and merciful conditions upon which 
each person could not only abide in harmony with divine 
love, but find correction and recovery from evil. 

We have seen the innocence of ignorant error, the 
minimum of guilt and harm attending error and sin, the 
corrective and disciplining tendency which love imposes 
upon error and sin, conditioning all persons with hope 
and help. We have recognized also that to each indi- 
vidual all the suffering of corrective chastisement is 
over-compensated by the resulting recovery of purity, 
strength, and endless development of character; that 
the ills imposed by heredity and environment cannot pre- 
vent his spiritual exaltation, but are made to contribute 
to it. The outraged consciousness of martyrdom, too, 
has its compensating triumph in the more immediate 
actualization of an ideal life. 

All this wild and awful scene of suffering and wrong 
has its compensation only in love. Love, with its power 
to inspire and glorify the conscious spirit, to realize to 
that spirit the perfection of holiness, truth, beauty, and 
good ; love, with its rapture ever surviving its pang, en- 
during its torture only to burst forth in proportionately 
larger development ; love, with its implication of immor- 
tality and an ever-advancing ideal, — is the consolation, 
as it is the source, of the universe. As love is the self- 
sufficient nature of the unconditioned reality, it is self- 
sufficient as the nature of a conditioned universe. Love, 
and immortality for love's sake, are the surviving, all- 
compensating factors which can weave every error, 



266 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

sorrow, and repentance into the will's "armor of light," 
the knightly long-sufferer's cloth-of-gold. 

Then let it be clearly recognized that however great 
may have been the sum of error, sin, and sorrow in the 
universe, it is the least that could be secured by the 
Creator, in proportion to the highest possible good of 
dependent persons, and that the greatness of its volume 
is due to these persons themselves, who alone could have 
made it less. Let it be remembered also that wherein 
it could not be prevented by divine love, it is held 
within conditions which provide for either its merciful 
remedy or its self-extinction. Nothing but unreasoning, 
perverse devotion to sin can prevent its corrective, 
chastening use in any individual soul. 

Thus it appears that the Creator, in choosing to create 
finite beings, but indulges love's eternal, altruistic spirit, 
and gives it the most beneficent, because perfect deter- 
mination. He develops the ever-increasing good of his 
altruistic life as he ever realizes the infinite good of 
his unconditioned, egoistic life. The evolution of love, 
advancing in its eternal process of altruistic determina- 
tion, maintains the original unity of holiness and benevo- 
lence, and assures the ultimate oneness of the actual 
and the ideal universe. 



THE ATONING FACT. 



267 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE ATONING FACT. 



The ideal, to this summit God descends, man rises — Victor 
Hugo. 

In perfect action, which constitutes perfect being, — 
the unconditioned, or infinite person, — we have found 
the original unit. The nature of tliat action we have 
found to be an unconditioned, infinitely free life ; which 
unconditioned life, of perfect adjustment, is the realiza- 
tion of absolute perfection ; and that this self-enacted 
and perfectly adjusted life is love. 

We have seen, in a word, that the nature of perfect 
action is love ; and that love is an order of self-deter- 
mining action in which is reahzed infinite self-conscious- 
ness, or unconditioned egoism. Moreover, this perfect, 
love-achieved egoism conditions perfect altruism without 
being conditioned by it, and thus the existence of per- 
sons or a universe of persons, other than the infinite 
Person, is possible and probable to our thought, as also 
certain to our experience. 

In the determination or carrying out of perfect altru- 
ism we have seen the rise of relative consciousness in 
the Deity, — the divine sonship, — and also the putting 
forth of objective action by the divine Son in the crea- 
tion of an objective universe of dependent persons. 

We have also seen, in a former chapter, the genesis 
of evil, and the necessity of merciful benevolence as a 



268 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

condition to the existence of a perfect personal universe 
and its solution of the "problem of evil." It has ap- 
peared too that this solution, whether in individual 
character or collective forms of life, is one in which 
through a long series of ages sin demonstrates its total 
lack of merit, its infinite demerit ; and love proves its 
limitless altruistic capability, sustaining the utmost test 
imposed by sinful freedom, outliving the full determina- 
tion of sin, and affording the conditions to the develop- 
ment of a universe regenerated, purified, harmonious, 
and secure in the utmost freedom possible to dependent 
persons, — thus realizing the eternal companionship of 
infinite and finite being. In a word, love is able, unim- 
paired, to posit the conditions of a universe of perfect 
finite persons. 

We have seen, further, that through all this evolution 
of love its immaculate ideal abides uncompromised, its 
devotion to that ideal unwavering, its eternal altruistic 
spirit unabated, holy. 

But hitherto we have said nothing of the subjective 
strain, so to speak, which is experienced by a love which, 
though holy because of its devotion to the perfect, 
pours out unfailing mercy to sinners, affords conditions 
for measureless sin and sorrow, gives scope for the self- 
demonstration of sinful freedom, endures incalculable 
abuse ; yet is unimpaired in holiness and benevolence. 
In this strain upon the evolution of love must be found, 
if found at all, the atoning fact. 

All theories of atonement which involve a ' ' legal fic- 
tion," a criminal substitution, or a commercial transaction 
are crude and unsatisfactory because an atoning fact 
nowhere clearly appears in them. All theories of atone- 
ment by martyrdom or " moral influence " are superficial 



THE ATONING FACT. 



269 



and evaporate when analyzed, — evaporate because they 
contain no atoning fact. To affirm an atonement is to 
claim that there exists the force of atoning fact in the 
relations of God to the universe ; and to teach a philos- 
ophy of atonement is warranted only by such fact hav- 
ing been clearly discriminated as implied, disclosed, or 
both, by love. Hence a treatment of the subject should 
develop, first, an atoning fact, and secondly, its relation 
to man as implied in divine love. 

The simplest definition of atonement is ^' a bringing 
together," but as habitually associated with rehgious 
sacrifice it includes also the idea of suffering on the part 
of the one by whom this bringing together or reconcilia- 
tion is accomplished. In addition to these contents of 
the term, the fact or idea of vicarious sacrifice on the 
part of the atoning one is insisted upon by some and 
rejected by others as essential to complete the notion of 
atonement for sin. 

The incompatibility between the notion of a holy God 
and the fact of his upholding a world of sinners in mer- 
ciful conditions turns all thoughtfully religious minds 
toward a reconciliation either maintained or at some 
time achieved in his action toward them. But how 
maintained, or at what point achieved and at what cost 
are questions upon which there has been much disagree- 
ment. Lack of clear discrimination in philosophy must 
result in great discrepancy and lack of clearness in the 
interpretation of data, whether these data be natural or 
revealed. To pursue the hne of love's evolution seems 
to the writer the only safe method by which to ascer- 
tain what of atonement it implies, — whether atonement 
is a fact, and what is the form of that fact. Having 
found such fact it may then appear whether it has been 



270 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

originally maintained or supplementarily achieved ; 
whether or not it involves reconciliation and suffering ; 
and whether that suffering is sacrificial and vicarious. 
Hence reconciliation, suffering, sacrifice, vicariousness, 
each or all may be recognized as contents of the ques- 
tion. Do any or all of them exist in fact, or are they 
mere figures of speech ; and if all really exist, do they 
fill out the notion of atonement for sin? A true answer 
to these questions must decide as to the fact and phi- 
losophy of atonement. 

The notion of atonement must imply, — 

1. That there is an absolute authority, a sacred im- 
perative in something. 

2. That this imperative is propitiated, satisfied, by 
somewhat. It may imply, — 

3. That suffering, agony, is incident to this propitiation. 

4. That this suffering may be undeserved by the 
sufferer, and is therefore a sacrifice. 

5. It may be, in some sense, a displacement of suf- 
fering in others, whose suffering should result from 
the same cause, and therefore this displacement is 
vicarious. 

Some of these contents are recognized in some form 
in every theory of atonement, but may have been 
erroneously distributed, or cumbered with crudities 
imposed by systems. Two things, at least, ought to 
appear, namely : whether in the evolution of love there 
exist facts which are essentially atoning in their char- 
acter j and what is their true relation in their evolution. 

As we set about this inquiry let us reiterate that 
love is action which is conscious of an ideal, to the 
realization of which it is devoted. It is devotion to 
perfectness. It is the only kind of action of which we 



THE ATONING FACT. 27 1 

can conceive which is capable of realizing unconditioned 
perfection ; the only conceivable nature of perfect being. 
In the infinite ego it is unconditioned intention ever 
realizing absolute perfection. And in finite beings it 
is supreme conditioned intention, the only kind of ac- 
tion known to us which can determine conditioned 
perfection. 

In its unconditioned action it can experience no 
obstruction, friction, or delay, but constantly actualizes 
infinite perfection ; but when we think of its evolution 
in an objective universe we must think of it as condi- 
tioned devotement, — it achieves its ends by means of 
supplementary effort. It is devotement to the realiza- 
tion of a finite ideal, which, when achieved, will be a 
perfect, though dependent universe. In seeking to 
actualize such ideal universe it is related to that ideal 
as subject to object ; hence its action is conditioned by 
that object, and by the means and supplementary 
agencies by which that object is attained. The manner 
and extent of its action are mainly decided by the type, 
or kind, of universe it seeks. This type is that ideal 
which it strives to actualize. 

Since love is devotion to the perfect it is a perfect 
universe only which its evolution can have in view. 
This action, though conditioned, is perfect within its 
conditions. God's action, which is the going forth of 
love only by virtue of its devotion to perfection, cannot 
be self-conscious love if it seek less than the ideal, the 
perfect. Not only does love realize the absolute ideal 
in the independent Being, and the relative ideal in the 
" Eternal Son," — Creator, — but having chosen to 
create a universe, love must be thought as devoted to 
the realization of an ideal object; the ideal universe. 



27 2 ^^^ ^ VOL UTION OF LO VE. 

Moreover, an ideal universe when actually realized is 
a perfect universe. A perfect universe realizes the 
highest conditioned good : and divine love acting 
objectively, though within limiting conditions, cannot 
be thought as implying less than this highest condi- 
tioned good. 

The essential conditions upon which love can realize 
a universe are clearly of two classes : — 

1. The ideal sought to be realized. 

2. The action which achieves this realization. 

I. We find in the first, the ideal, the sacred authority 
which decides what manner of universe must be evolved. 
This sacred authority of the ideal is the first datum in 
atonement. A former chapter treats at some length of 
the authority of the ideal, and hence it is only needful 
to remember here that the sacred or the holy is the 
quality of intentional perfection ; that whether it be the 
actual perfection which is intentionally realized in God 
or the ideal perfection which is intended to be realized 
in the universe, it is still the intending or purposing 
perfection that is the holy. 

Further, the ideal could have no authority, no moral 
imperative, if it were impossible to actualize. But since 
love does actuaHze the absolute ideal in the infinite 
being, its ideal is absolutely authoritative in all being. 
We may think of the ideal as already actualized, practi- 
cal perfection, or as actualizable ideal perfection. In 
either case its authority is absolute ; it is the holy, or 
moral imperative. Because love only is perfect action 
and intentionally realizes the perfect, conditioned or 
unconditioned, its ideal is holy and authoritative. All 
other action is subject to love's moral authority, and its 
fitness or unfitness is adjudged by the criterion of love's 



THE ATONING FACT. 273 

perfection. This, for the reason that love is the only 
action which can and does achieve actual perfection of 
being. It is plain, then, that the ideal must be a 
changeless condition in the evolution of love. It is the 
sacred, uncompromisable imperative. 

2. Action which satisfies the requirements of its 
ideal is propitiation, — action which propitiates the per- 
fect in behalf of the imperfect. Now, since God has 
chosen an evolution of love, that evolution must satisfy 
love's holy imperative by actualizing love's ideal, — real- 
izing perfection both in individual, finite persons and 
in the universe. This is the same as to say that love is 
devotion to the perfect in the process of evolution as 
well as in the perfect nature of God. Then, if love's 
evolutionary action is devoted to the realizing of ideal 
finite personality and thereby an ideal universe, that 
devotion propitiates the ideal. Though this action may 
be conditioned, modified, Hmited, abused, perverted, 
by finite persons, yet if it maintains conditions upon 
which the perfect finite person and universe may be 
achieved, it thereby propitiates the holy imperative of 
its ideal. The sacred ideal which is actually implicit in 
love is the imperative fact ; devotion to that ideal is 
the propitiating fact in love's evolution of the universe. 
The action which affords the conditions for the perfec- 
tion of finite being, and hence a perfect universe is the 
propitiating, satisfying, atoning fact. 

Again, let it be kept in mind that an ideal universe, 
when practically realized, must afford the highest con- 
ditioned good, and hence it is the realization of perfect 
benevolence. Thus love, which realizes absolute holi- 
ness and infinite good in the divine egoism is not only 
perfectly holy, but also perfectly benevolent. Love's 

18 



274 '^^^ EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

ideal, the changeless imperative, is holy and benevolent 
in all personal determination. And its devotion, which 
seeks to realize the i^deal in a universe, is not only holy, 
but benevolent to the highest degree of conditioned per- 
fection. Hence its devotement is the satisfaction which 
the ideal requires. To thus devote its action to the 
maintenance of the conditions upon which all finite per- 
sons may realize ideal finite personahty is to propitiate 
the ideal in behalf of those persons. 

If God were simply and singly altruistic, wholly de- 
voted to conferring advantages upon others, regardless 
of the use or abuse to which those others might appro- 
priate these advantages, he would thus ignore the ideal 
and become a willing party to such abuse ; a willing 
party to selfishness in others. He would have no per- 
sonal, subjective interest in thus giving out, save the 
gratification of his power to give ; which, in such case, 
would be a selfish and wicked satisfaction. His giving 
would lose the quality of benevolence, as well as that of 
holiness ; and would, therefore, cease to be love. It 
would be a vain prodigality of resources fraught with 
degrading tendency to its recipients ; and hence, a con- 
nivance at their degradation. It could realize no higher 
self-determination than a vainglorious exhibition of 
power. In the event any one of its recipients should 
regret his own degrading abuses and aspire to some- 
thing better, he could find no sympathy or incitement in 
God's action to help him back to moral purity ; it could 
not condition moral recovery. Hence love, regarded 
as simple, unquaHfied altruism, omnipotent alms-giving, 
would be unable to achieve a perfect personal universe. 
Altruism without intention to promote excellence in its 
recipients is simply universal selfishness ; and must drag 



THE ATONING FACT. 



275 



Creator and creature down to common selfishness and 
hate. 

Yet all the imperfections which infidels think they see 
in the world, and all the complaints of pessimists arise 
from this absurd view of divine love. 

But love, in its devotion to the practical realization of 
an ideal universe, is essentially holy, perfect in its inten- 
tion, and this very holiness is the guaranty of beneficent 
altruism. But if love had no method of bestowing but 
to create beings with the largest capacity to receive and 
to pour upon them the largest gifts, it is impossible to 
see how it could achieve a universe of higher motives 
than hope and fear. Hope and fear, as supreme motives, 
are the inspiration of selfishness in dependent beings, 
and the exponent of selfishness in the independent; 
and so love vanishes. 

When, then, on this sin-cursed planet, we say, by 
authority of either reason or revelation, that " God is 
love," that affirmation implies that his action intends 
perfection — he is holy ; and also that this perfection 
is achieved by beneficent altruism and for a beneficent 
end — he is benevolent. Action fails to be or express 
love when either of these qualities is absent. It has 
abandoned the ideal, their ground and guaranty. 

Action which satisfies the requirements of its ideal is 
propitiation. Its propitiatory character may be incon- 
spicuous amid the harmonies of uncrossed love, or within 
simple self-imposed conditions. But when love is crossed, 
the realization of its ideal obstructed and baffled by 
complex conditions imposed by other and antagonizing 
forces, its purity traduced, its benevolence made the 
opportunity of selfishness, its conditioning action made 
to serve organized evil; and, above all, when it gra- 



276 



THE EVOLUTIOX OP LOVE. 



ciously conciliates and blesses its self-debased foes, restor- 
ing them to the harmonies and reaHzation of perfect 
being. — 't is then that it demonstrates its propitiatory 
character by persistent devotion to its ideal, notwith- 
standing these obstructions. 

The periodic overflow of the Nile has been for cen- 
turies the most marked condition to Hfe and wealth for 
the swarming peoples of Lower Egypt. But this over- 
flow has ever been supplied by the action of mysterious 
and long-hidden sources which satisfy an imperative 
measure of repletion in the solitudes of central Africa. 
Vainly did the idolatrous people seek to propitiate that 
imperative measure with prayers to the mighty river, 
when its hidden sources withheld their wonted acdon. 
Only their action which swelled the bosoms of Africa's 
silent lakes could propitiate that imperative condition. 
In the placid bosom of the lake is the heart-beat of the 
Nile. Is it less potent than where its pulsations burst 
its throbbing arteries in Lower Egypt? This mighty 
action, which for hundreds of miles pours and storms 
with deliverance and wealth upon the famished lands, is 
but the evolution of the peaceful action of those long- 
undiscovered lakes. 

The wealth of the Nile may be made to serve oppres- 
sion and degradation, yet its tides roll on, and will 
continue until the neglect and abuse of the conditions 
to prosperity which it aftbrds shall cease. Its benefi- 
ciaries will uldmately, through unselfish intelligence, 
recognize and honor the persistent propitiation which 
in distant solitudes affords the condidons of their well- 
being. 

But this second class of conditions demands a more 
explicit consideration. These conditions are those which 



THE ATONING FACT. 277 

are evolved by love, seeking to achieve the highest con- 
ditioned good in a perfect universe. Since one person 
cannot determine the character of another, but can only 
determine conditions upon which another may or must 
determine his own character, love's propitiation of the 
ideal for dependent persons can only consist in affording 
the conditions upon which they may realize their perfect 
being. Unlike the first condition, the ideal, which is a 
changeless imperative, this second class includes chang- 
ing conditions which arise in the actions and relations 
through which the perfect universe is evolved. Since 
the evolution of love can be thought as striving only 
toward that which satisfies its ideal, its action must be 
thought as providing those conditions only upon which 
free, finite persons may actualize a perfect finite exist- 
ence. Hence the question : What is a perfect finite 
personality and universe ? And what are the conditions 
requisite to a perfect finite personality and perfect 
universe ? 

The first of these questions has been answered in a 
former chapter, substantially thus : A perfect finite per- 
sonality is a free and undisturbed progressive compan- 
ionship of finite persons with the infinite Person ; or, 
progressive interaction of dependent with independent 
being. Analyzed, it is dependent persons who within 
their conditions have (i) perfect harmony with God, 
and consequently within and among themselves ; 

(2) the largest freedom to determine themselves ; and 

(3) perfect security in this self-determined harmony. 

I. Love implies universal harmony, the harmony of 
the dependent person with the conditions of his being 
which are posited by the independent Person ; and as a 
consequence, the harmony of dependent persons with 



278 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



each other. This consequence follows from their com- 
mon harmonization with the conditions of their being 
which divine love posits. Love is the basis of uni- 
versal adjustment. Such perfect harmony is the freest 
and fullest reciprocation of love which is possible be- 
tween all finite persons, and between them and God. It 
assures the right of a common devotion to ideal self- 
hood in each individual and to the realization of the 
ideal universe. Pure self-love imphes the highest per- 
fection of each in harmony with that of all ; while sel- 
fishness, the right of none, and the enemy of all, imphes 
the degradation and ultimate destruction of all by uni- 
versal disharmony. Universal harmony in reciprocation 
of divine love is essentially implied in a perfect universe. 

2. As to freedom, it is scarcely necessary to say again 
that a universe can be known only as one of beings who 
are consciously other than the Creator ; self-determining 
and therefore persons. But a perfect universe must be 
composed of persons whose power to determine them- 
selves is the greatest possible to dependent beings, the 
largest freedom possible to dependent existence. Such 
freedom must be thought essential to the highest reali- 
zation of finite personahty, the highest conditioned good, 
the highest capability for their development of love in 
companionship with the infinite. 

3. Again, perfect finite personahty, or a perfect uni- 
verse must be perfectly secure against disharmony, not- 
withstanding its widest freedom. A universe which is 
liable to discord and defection cannot be deemed per- 
fect, does not realize perfect dependent being to its 
members or his ideal to its Creator. Nor can it assure 
undisturbed progress, but must embarrass the achieve- 
ment of the highest conditioned good. The danger of 



THE ATONING FACT- 



279 



discord which is incident to the freedom of dependent 
persons must be averted without impairing that freedom. 

This security cannot be thought attainable by any 
necessitating measures ; it must be achieved consistently 
with the largest freedom possible to dependent beings. 
But it must attain an improbability of defection so great 
as to be practically equivalent to an impossibility. This 
security, though not in the least degree the result of 
force or fate, must be practically equal to fate. Such is 
the moral assurance of harmony implied in the thought 
of perfect finite personality. 

Motivity, not coercion, is the only means by which 
this security is attained. Susceptibility to motives of 
love, and aversion to motives of selfishness in any form 
must be the elements of this security. These are the 
lines of eternal fortification against discord, the terms 
of eternal reassurance to companionship between finite 
beings and the infinite. Since men are free in the 
sphere of conditioned self-determination, divine love can 
secure their reciprocation only by incitement, or, as we 
have termed it, motivity. By motivity we understand 
outer influence and inner susceptibiHty, each affecting 
the other, and both, as so affected, constituting motivity. 
Only by motives and susceptibility, or aversion thereto, 
can persons be influenced in the respects in which they 
are free. Only by means of these can their persistence 
in any given course be perpetually assured. We are 
perfectly sure that men will never feed upon stones, for 
the reason that they have no appetence for stones, and 
that God will never be tempted to evil, since he is un- 
susceptible to such temptation. So, also, a universe of 
finite persons, conditioned by permanent motivity to love 
and aversion to selfishness, will abide in love's holy em- 



2 8o THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

brace evermore. In the realm of motivity, then, the 
holiness and goodness of free being is to be achieved 
and secured in whatever degree such achievement is 
possible. 

If the nature of finite persons, which constitutes one 
class of their conditions, were so fixed and unalterable 
as not to be susceptible to modification by their use or 
abuse of that nature, their harmony with the Creator's 
action might have been secured by the Creator's deter- 
mination, just as their physical susceptibility assures that 
they will never feed upon stones. But in such case 
their freedom would be nothing more than animal ne- 
cessity, incapable of self-determined character. Hence 
they would not be persons, hence not able to realize 
an ideal personality. 

Or if, having all the elements of personality, all per- 
sons were environed with external conditions which so 
fully manifest the truth, glory, and power of God as to 
preclude the possibility of error, — such, for example, 
as infants and idiots, who pass from this world without 
probationary development, are thought to enter upon, — 
they might be thought to be practically secure. They 
might develop a love of God and a harmonization with 
their environment truly dehghtful ; but they could never 
be conscious of unsusceptibihty to selfishness, never 
conscious of a self-determined character, secure in the 
exercise of the largest freedom of dependent personality, 
hence never could reahze a perfect finite personality, or 
a perfect universe. 

Since, then, finite persons are free in their self-deter- 
mination of what they shall be as to the use of their 
susceptibilities, and in their determination of what they 
will do as to their environment, it follows that their 



THE ATONING FACT. 28 1 

motivity is largely self-determined. That is to say, that 
divine love cannot determine, but can only condition, 
the motivity of other persons, which shall secure them 
in perfect harmony. Creating them persons — self-deter- 
mining — was to make them liable to disharmony. That 
liabihty is imphcit in self-determination. But that self- 
determination is so conditioned that it is able to elimi- 
nate the hability to disharmony by determining in itself 
a susceptibility to love and aversion to selfishness which 
can never be disturbed. 

To afford the conditions upon which all dependent 
persons may determine their own perfection is, it is 
clear, the work of divine love. This work is love's de- 
votion to the realization of the perfect finite person and 
the perfect universe, — the atoning fact. If love's inter- 
action with each dependent person is such as to con- 
dition motivity to love, if to the erring and sinning who 
have not chosen fixed antagonism to it love evolves 
conditions to recovery from evil, and if upon these con- 
ditions dependent persons shall attain fixed motivity to 
good and aversion to evil, then does love successfully 
propitiate the ideal in its evolution. This is actual 
atonement for sin. 

But since harmony, freedom, and security are essen- 
tial to perfection in a universe, it is evident that in 
evolving such universe the Creator goes to the greatest 
length in hemming himself about with conditions and 
obligations. In conditioning the finite perfection of de- 
pendent persons, he enables them to condition his own 
action to the extent that whatever they may determine 
in the use of themselves, he must maintain their exist- 
ence and respect their freedom in working out such 
results as they determine in interaction with his activities 



282 1'^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

in and around them. This is implied in the develop- 
ment of perfect finite freedom. This alone can afford 
the conditions upon which they may either rise to se- 
cure companionship with God or sink to self-determined 
destruction. 

But we can easily see that the moral freedom of de- 
pendent persons which shall thus appropriate the benev- 
olence of love may abuse, misappropriate, and pervert 
that benevolence, and thereby introduce disharmony and 
even disaster. By creating free persons the Creator has 
put it out of his own hands to prevent the rise of evil. 
One person can only condition another ; that other alone 
can determine himself upon such conditioning. The 
self-determining power of persons is power for evil as 
well as for good. They are able to pervert their nature 
and environment, and that is to pervert the action of 
their Creator, and thus make him the servitor of their ini- 
quities. They are able to organize his activities, which 
constitute their nature and natural environment, into 
vast sources and systems of sin and suffering, — able to 
turn his benefits into inflictions of wrong upon each 
other. Moreover, as seen in former chapters, he must 
permit this abuse to run its course, or else he must 
shrink from the attempt to realize his altruistic deter- 
mination, — must forego the bestowal of infinite be- 
nevolence, — abandon the evolution of love. Thus the 
determination of perfect benevolence furnishes the con- 
ditions upon which finite self-determination can baffle 
benevolence, and set at naught holiness in the world. 
Unlike God's personal perfection, which is simply self- 
determined, the perfection of the universe must be de- 
termined eventually by all the persons who make up that 
universe. And this must be done upon the conditions 



THE ATONING FACT. 



283 



which love evolves, however modified by the use or 
abuse which may be imposed thereon by the actions of 
finite persons. 

These conditions being holy and benevolent in aim 
and tendency, love's evolution, to be unimpeached and 
untarnished, must be successful, however much of evil 
may arise in the process of realizing a perfect universe. 
Action which takes chances of disaster must, to be holy 
and beneficent, provide for either the prevention or 
remedy of such disaster. If it fail in this it is respon- 
sible for the disaster, and hence blameworthy ; no matter 
how pure and benevolent the impulse which prompted 
the action. Hence it is true that only love appears as 
the nature of action which can account for the existence 
of a personal universe. For love only can successfully 
evolve the conditions to perfect finite personality. 
Though it condition the possibility of evil, it also con- 
ditions the remedy of evil, and this, too, without injus- 
tice to any being. 

Since the self-determination of finite persons cannot 
be violated, but is in their own hands, yet the conditions 
to their self-perfecting must be afforded by the action 
which evolves their being, the following statement is 
clear : Love's devotion to ideal finite being, individual 
and universal, propitiates the ideal by affording the con- 
ditions upon which dependent persons may achieve per- 
fect finite personality and determine a perfect universe. 

That justice cannot, but grace alone can condition 
the development of a perfect universe, has been shown 
in a former chapter. Enacting the perfect in the evolu- 
tion of a universe, love can contemplate nothing less 
than persons who may attain to the highest self-deter- 
mination possible to dependent being; that they shall 



284 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



achieve this in accord with the universal right of self- 
love and thereby realize universal harmony ; and that 
they shall be able to attain security from all Hability to 
discord or defection. Moreover, the practical realiza- 
tion of this ideal is the highest conditionable good ; to 
bestow which is the benevolent purpose of love's evolu- 
tion. All this is to say that the gracious evolution of 
love — an evolution beyond the limits of justice — con- 
ditions, not only the rise, but the remedy of evil. It 
thus conditions the realization of the perfect universe, 
and hence propitiates the imperative ideal. 

The question, How does grace accomphsh this? has 
been answered in outlining the problem of evil, — sub- 
stantially thus : the ideal finite person must be a progres- 
sive person ; the progressive person must begin as an 
ignorant and feeble person ; an ignorant and feeble per- 
son must be conditioned in grace ; and gracious condi- 
tions are evolved by love's devotion to the realization of 
a perfect personal universe. 

Dependent persons may thus settle for themselves and 
for all intelligent observers and associates the questions, 
doubts, and pretensions which ignorance or selfishness 
may have originated. They may settle them by demon- 
stration of their deceptive and despicable nature ; and 
may acquire an aversion and hatred toward selfishness 
that will render them forever unsusceptible to its tempta- 
tions ; while, on the other hand, by experience of love's 
purifying, exalting, remedial grace they will apprehend it 
as the nature of perfect being, limitless in resource ; and 
will acquire an ever deepening susceptibility to infinite 
motives, the charm of the perfect. Thus they may de- 
monstrate that love, perfectly holy and benevolent, is 
the nature of perfect self-determination ; that in actual- 



THE ATONING FACT. 



285 



izing its ideals they have the open sesame to the 
highest determination of finite freedom and excellence ; 
and that a holy God and a holy universe are the in- 
finitely and only worthy modes of being. If love, sub- 
jected as it must be to the abuses, perversions, and 
conditions which finite freedom and evil can impose, 
shall nevertheless achieve successful conditions to this 
universal susceptibility and devotion to the ideal, and 
aversion to selfishness and selfish motives, it will thereby 
realize a perfect universe, — a universe of persons in har- 
monious articulation with the divine activities. And if 
in the meantime it shall maintain the conditions of such 
motivity to all persons, it will have propitiated the holy 
imperative of the ideal. 

Action which should create a person or a universe of 
persons in the highest form of finite powers, not being 
able to remedy sin except by exercise of justice in the in- 
fliction of punishment, cannot render evil self-corrective, 
cannot inspire devotion to ideal personality, hence can- 
not propitiate the authority of the perfect, and hence can- 
not make an atonement upon which sin could be forgiven 
or the sinner recovered to loving harmony with God. But 
the evolution of love, in a universe of progressive persons, 
because it maintains in each person the authority of the 
ideal, and affords him merciful conditions upon which to 
actualize an ideal self, can achieve ultimately perfect finite 
personality and a perfect universe. And because it can 
and does do this, love's devotement to the ideal atones 
for all the evil incident to a progressively self-determin- 
ing universe. It atones to the ideal by maintaining the 
authority of that ideal, and by conditioning its realiza- 
tion. It conditions the realization of its ideal, not by re- 
pressing, but by remedying evil. It achieves security in 



2 86 'rHE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

the harmony of perfect finite freedom, not by eliminat- 
ing freedom, but by conditioning the self-ehmination of 
all susceptibility to the abuse of freedom, and by incit- 
ing universal devotion to the perfect. In a word, it 
discloses the nature of perfection, and conditions a 
universal motivity to enact the perfect in what persons 
should be and do. 

The evolution of love, advancing in its eternal process 
of altruistic determination, maintains the original unity of 
holiness and benevolence, and assures the ultimate one- 
ness of the ideal and actual universe. The holy, which 
is the quality of intentional perfection ; and the good, 
which is the practical satisfaction of perfection ; and 
benevolence, the bestowing of good, — are perpetually at 
one. Neither moral impurity nor failure in benevolence 
appears in this process, although dependent persons may 
fill its bosom with unspeakable selfishness and wrong. 
No reconciliation is needed in love's action, other than 
that which exists unbroken in the original and indivisi- 
ble unity of the holy and the good. This inviolable 
unity reconciles, in love, the amplest determination of 
benevolence with ideal holiness. Love is the unity 
which holds in reconciliation the factors of its evolution, 
the holy imperative of the ideal, and the limitless ben- 
evolence which affords the conditions for the realization 
of this ideal. This realization will be the universal one- 
ness of the actual and the ideal. Love's devotement to 
the ideal, the atoning fact, is the power and pledge of 
that oneness. The implicit oneness of hohness and 
merciful benevolence in love becomes exphcit in the 
ultimate oneness of the actual and the ideal in the per- 
fection of the universe. 

Thus God's devotement to the perfect is the satisfy- 



THE ATONING FACT. 



287 



ing fact in the placid harmonies of the infinite conscious- 
ness, the propitiating fact in his relative consciousness 
amid the disharmonies of his abused and perverted 
mercies, the atoning fact in conditioning the recovery 
and security of the harmonies of a perfect universe. 
Verily love's devotement to its ideal is the atoning fact. 
It realizes full determination only in action which is per- 
fect, — perfect in purpose, and unHmited in the benevo- 
lence which compasses that purpose, — like a mighty 
river whose onward action, hedged, dammed-up, turned 
awry, conditioned by abuse and perversion, rises, widens, 
and bears the universe on to a shoreless, fathomless per- 
fection of being. 

The agony of love. — This is that consciousness of soli- 
citude which is implied in conditioned effort to realize 
the ideal. Unconditioned action reahzes perfection in 
itself; hence in his unconditioned self-determination 
God cannot be thought conscious of solicitude in real- 
izing absolute perfection. But as the " Eternal Son," the 
relative consciousness in Deity, he must be thought con- 
scious of solicitude in his objective effort to evolve a 
perfect universe, conditioned as his effort is by the free- 
dom of the persons who compose that universe. Hence 
this solicitude must be recognized as one of the impli- 
cations of divine love in its evolution. 

This solicitude is subject to be deepened into indefi- 
nite degrees of intensity by the perverse determinations 
of the dependent persons whose perfecting is the object 
of love's devotion. The Creator's activities, put forth to 
condition the development of dependent persons, may 
be so baffled and perverted as to defer for indefinite 
ages the object of his devotement. The degradation 
and sorrow also of his children which must result from 



288 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

this disharmony must vastly enhance the anguish of 
love's devotion to their highest good. Hence love in 
this evolution must experience that which in human 
experience and human language is agony. Though we 
may not affirm actual pain, we must recognize divine 
love as being in that attitude which to human love is 
the very rack of anguish. And if, in any event, this 
divine consciousness were expressed through the medium 
of human nature it must be a revelation of agony. 

The solicitude of love must be borne until the actual 
universe shall realize the ideal ; until love's devotion to 
the ideal is crowned with universal success. Until then 
the activities of divine love are subject to abuse and 
perversion, which baffle and retard the practical realiza- 
tion of the end to which it is devoted. This devote- 
ment is subject (i) to possibility of the rise of error, 
selfishness, and suffering in the world ; (2) to the actual 
existence and world-wide prevalence among men of sin 
and suffering. Moreover (3) these activities are subject 
to their being made to co-operate with sin and sorrow 
and afford scope and power for their domination ; (4) 
selfishness arises in rivalry with love and usurps its 
throne in the human heart ; (5) the good of being is 
for ages abridged by actual evil ; and (6) there is finally 
a final rejection of love's effort in the incorrigible, which 
love can remedy only by conditioning the self-defeat, per- 
haps self-extinction of the conscious sinner. All these 
facts and considerations, while they do not tarnish the di- 
vine purity or benevolence, constitute subjection, offence, 
agony to love. Although love so conditions them with 
corrective, remedial, and exalting tendencies, yet they 
condition love, obstruct its benevolence, and offend 
its purity; hence must be thought as of unspeakable 



THE ATONING FACT, 



289 



offence and agony to love. Although the Creator might 
in the exercise of arbitrary justice destroy each sinner, 
and thus forego the development of finite character to 
a higher type than force and fear could incite, although 
God might have chosen to dwell in unalloyed bliss with- 
out creating a universe, yet this conclusion abides un- 
moved : His nature, love, " naturally desires " objects 
to love ; objects that can know and feel that love ; ob- 
jects that can reciprocate that love ; hence objects that 
are free persons, able to reject, revile, and abuse that 
love. Love can manage these only by surrounding 
them with conditions of mercy. This management is 
subject to ages of the continuance of evil, and this con- 
tinuance imposes ages of antagonism, offence, and prac- 
tical subjection, which condition and therefore agonize 
love. Hence it is evident that love's choice to create 
a universe of persons is the choice to accept the vast 
cycle of agony which it must undergo on account of 
error, sin, and sorrow which it must permit. 

Perhaps sin and sorrow could have been avoided by 
creating a universe of a low order, — and thus love's 
agony avoided : but such could not have been love's 
universe. It might have served to display divine power 
and maintain divine supremacy undisputed, but it could 
never achieve divine companionship, never be worthy of 
divine love. Could love in any way dissolve the 
original unity of holiness and benevolence and maintain 
its own existence as devotement to the perfect, it might 
avoid its agony. But since it is what it is, it must 
agonize until devotement to the perfect is assured 
throughout the conscious universe. Devotement to the 
ideal, which is the bond of reconciliation throughout the 
entire evolution of love, the bond which holds an 

19 



2go THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

ignorant, sinful, and suffering world in the arms of a 
holy benevolence until it shall develop its own security 
in holy freedom, — this all-reconciling devotement is the 
agonizing factor in love. 

If in the exercise of their self-determination, God's 
children abuse his beneficence by making it an occasion 
for selfish satisfaction in sin of every kind, it would 
cause no regret in him if his love were without devo- 
tion to the perfect, without the quality of hohness. But 
because of this quality in love, such abuse of his 
beneficence results in agony to love. Hence, in order 
to carry out the highest benevolence, perfect altruism in 
ideal finite being, by abiding holy it must continue to 
agonize. This is the agony of devotement. This is the 
sphere in which the intense strain between the ideal and 
the actual appears. 

Devotement to the ideal is unswervingly holy. That 
ideal demands ever-enlarging benevolence toward the 
erring and selfish, in order to its realization by their 
correction and redemption. This larger benevolence is 
in turn appropriated by sinners as opportunity for 
further, wider, vaster evil. The discrepancy between 
the actual and the ideal world becomes a breach, the 
breach becomes a chasm, the chasm an antagonism. 
The actual world is at war with its ideal and with the 
forces which condition its existence and perfecting. 
Yet love's devotion enlarges its benevolence to cir- 
cumvent that antagonism ; multipHes benefits to its 
enemies, gives them standing-room, fighting-room, 
supplies them with the instruments of their warfare, 
replenishes their commissariat, and still offers them 
amnesty, pardon, fellowship, eternal companionship. 
All this ever-widening benevolence it gives that they 



THE ATONING FACT. 2QI 

may perceive its excellence, may find incitement and 
opportunity to recover fi-om selfishness, and that sin 
may defeat itself either in the sinner s self-loathing and 
renunciation of it, or by means of his incorrigible self- 
degradation and perhaps entire loss of moral freedom 
and personality. Thus through ages upon ages, baffled, 
abused, perverted, apparently defeated, its activities 
turned against itself, helplessly sustaining sin by lovingly 
sustaining the existence of sinners, meeting greater 
emergencies with greater mercies, yet unswerving in 
devotion to the ideal, hence atoning to the ideal, 
love's atonement is an atonement of agony. 

This is not the agony of correction, for that would 
imply, in love, fault and dependence. It is not the 
agony of punishment, for that would imply its moral 
degradation. It is not the agony of defeat, for that 
would be destruction. It is an agony which persists 
because the quality and efficiency of the agonist are 
maintained unimpaired. Because its quality and effi- 
ciency can and do abide in unwavering devotion to the 
ideal, throughout the process of evolving a perfect 
universe, it atones. Because unimpaired in quality, it 
can afford to maintain the attitude of forgiveness, and is 
efficient to achieve the recovery of the erring and 
sinning. It atones in conditioning the ultimate harmony 
and security of dependent persons in the largest finite 
freedom. It is the one fact in which love evinces to 
finite minds its infinite sufficiency to await the deter- 
mination of its ideal, notwithstanding the most difficult 
conditions which the largest freedom of a conditioned 
universe can impose. 

The benevolent father who sees his benevolence 
made the occasion and instrument oi crime and shame 



292 THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 

by his son would experience no sense of agony if he 
were indifferent to moral purity and honor in himself or 
his son. But because he is a pure, as well as benevo- 
lent father, it is grief to him to witness this abuse and 
perversion of his benevolence. And while his love to 
his boy cannot prevent that boy's wickedness in any 
way except, by greater lenience, to render that wicked- 
ness corrective and provide that it shall have the 
least disastrous result, it must be to himself a cause of 
inexpressible agony. But because of this very agony 
which is at once the exponent of his purity, his 
benevolence, and his boy's turpitude, he is in the best 
possible position to forgive, help, and ultimately recover 
his wayward son. It is this agony that evinces to the 
son that his repentance will meet with forgiveness and 
be moral uplifting to him. This agony could be avoided 
in either of two ways : by abandoning either his child or 
his moral purity. Either would be the defeat of love. 

If an ideal family government were the type of gov- 
ernment in our thought when characterizing our view 
of the atonement, we should unhesitatingly term it a 
"governmental theory." But the "governmental 
theory," so termed, is so cumbered with the crudities 
of civic forms and political preconceptions that, to 
avoid misunderstanding, we prefer to term it the Par- 
ental Theory.^ 

Sacrifice. — This is necessarily implied in the evolution 
of love. In choosing to bestow the greatest good of finite 
personal existence, by conditioning a world of persons, 
love places itself in a position where it is subjected to 

1 Since this chapter was written there has appeared *' Abbot's 
Commentary on The Romans," in which a somewhat similar 
though dimly defined view of the divine agony is suggested. 



THE ATONING FACT. 203 

agony. This agony, willingly assumed by love, that it 
may bestow the highest good possible to a dependent 
universe, is its sacrifice, because undeserved. God 
might have chosen to dwell in no mode of conscious- 
ness lower than the unalloyed enjoyment of his infin- 
itely perfect egoism. Or he might have chosen, in 
his perfect altruistic freedom, to create a universe of 
persons in the highest possible degree of finite intelli- 
gence and power, to be dealt with upon the conditions 
of arbitrary right and justice ; each person being de- 
stroyed in the first inception of selfishness ; each sinner 
thus suffering his own ill-desert. The moral purity of the 
Creator or of the universe might thus have been main- 
tained without agony or sacrifice on the part of God. 
But this, as we have seen, could not reaHze a world of 
dependent persons of higher type than force and fear 
could incite, hence, not a world capable of highest good, 
not an ideal world, not love's world. But since it is in 
love that God has chosen to create persons who shall 
have the greatest freedom possible to dependent beings, 
in order that they may realize the highest good possible 
to dependent personal existence ; and since he maintains 
the conditions requisite to such realization through his 
agonizing devotement ; and since this agony is imposed 
by the free abuse of these conditions by dependent 
persons, it is clear that this agony is not deserved by 
love, but is a gracious sacrifice which it makes to achieve 
their perfection and to bestow upon them the resulting 
good. Hence we may say that love's agony is unde- 
served, (i) because God is under no obligation to 
create other persons ; and he gains nothing to himself 
by creating, as it is not requisite to the perfection of 
independent being, but is chosen in perfect freedom. 



294 ^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

(2) Having chosen to create, he imposes upon himself 
the obHgation to be just, only. He is under no obliga- 
tion to secure to created beings a larger degree of good 
than that which will compensate them for such incon- 
venience or ill as may be naturally incident to their type 
of being. (3) But having chosen, from motives of love, 
to create and condition a world which, in order to 
achieve the highest possible good to his creatures im- 
poses upon him the agony of atonement, that choice is 
a choice of agony. Choosing agony as the path to the 
limitless good of others, others whose existence con- 
tributes nothing to his own perfection, is the unspeak- 
able sacrifice of love. 

The evolution of love in the personal universe is but 
a process of positing conditions. Upon these condi- 
tions dependent persons rise into being and determine 
their destiny. Love, in its evolution, constantly holds 
the conditions to highest good to all, and persistently 
widens and deepens them that it may condition the 
perfection of the most lowly and vile. Persistently does 
it support the purest and most aspiring with conditions 
to yet higher attainment. In all this, love places the 
determination of its evolution in the hands of the 
creatures whom it conditions. If they so determine, 
that evolution will be rapid and upward ; if they deter- 
mine otherwise it will be slow and degrading, taking 
wide, tortuous, and agonizing detour to condition the 
possession of a promised land which might have been 
reached by a short and direct route. To voluntarily 
place the determinations for which one is ultimately 
responsible in the hands of others is the very essence 
of sacrifice. Its determination is thus placed in their 
hands when love's evolution, which posits gracious 



THE ATONING FACT. 205 

conditions of holiness and good, is subjected to the 
wrong and abuse to which it is perverted by a race of 
sinners ; and this must be until the self-correction and 
self-defeat of sin constrain them to acknowledge its 
perfect excellence. When love's objective action sub- 
mits to be conditioned by every error and sin of each 
member of a world of sinners, and its grand aim is, 
without right or reason, deferred, baffled, and antago- 
nized by their freedom, which love sacredly respects and 
upholds, its entire evolution is an unspeakable sacrifice. 
When each error is a check, and each sin a grief to 
love's devotement to the perfection and highest good of 
all, the determination of that good is sustained in 
agony ; and that agony is an agony of sacrifice. 

That all this is involved in the original projett of 
a universe does not change the sacrificial character of 
love's evolution, but enhances the benevolent motive 
by so much as this sacrifice was known to be inevitable 
to carry out that motive. Through this cycle of sin, 
shame, insult, and perversion, love proves a ready and 
able interaction with the recalcitrant sinner, nation, 
world, — to forgive, cleanse, and reform them whenever 
they so determine. Its fiame burns only to warm, 
cheer, and mature them ; though they, by their free, but 
false adjustment to it, make it a torture. Yet love en- 
dures this vast sacrifice in order that when they relent 
it may be able to recover and save them. Is love 
benevolent, its beneficence is made by sinners the 
instrument of malice. Is love gracious, that grace is 
made the occasion for vast schemes of injustice. Is 
love holy, that holiness is made the pretext for oppres- 
sion. Is love true, that truth is clipped and carved into 
lies. Is love beautiful, that beauty is made the decoy 



296 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



of lust. Is love pleasurable, sin drugs that pleasure with 
misery. On the altar of an ideal universe every quality 
of divine love quivers in sacrifice because the high priest 
of finite being is devoted to the realization of that holy 
ideal. 

By this sacrifice the authority of the ideal in the 
actual is maintained, for the world and for each finite 
person in their conditions. And the unity of the ideal 
and the actual is assured in the ultimate development. 
The existence of error, sin, and sorrow is compatible 
with divine purity and benevolence because love endures 
this sacrifice in order that wrong and sin may be self- 
correcting, self-defeating, and self-exhausting ; and that 
sorrow may be made self-compensating by the chastening 
and disciplining office to which it is conditioned by 
love. 

Vicarious7iess, or substitution, is also implied in the 
atoning agony of love. The agony which love endures 
displaces the suffering which sinners must, upon con- 
ditions of justice, endure as the result of their selfishness. 
The unrestrained result of selfishness is the correct notion 
of punishment ; hence it is correct to say that the punish- 
ment of sin is displaced by the agony of love which is 
endured in maintaining merciful conditions for the re- 
covery of sinners. This agony is caused by sin ; but 
sin, without the merciful conditions to which this agony 
is incident would instead cause hopeless punishment to 
the sinner. Hence the agony of love is a true substitute, 
vicarious agony for the hopeless disaster which would 
justly result to every sinner. Instead of sinners being 
abandoned to the selfish course which they have chosen 
and to the sufferings of which it must be the cause, 
mercy affords conditions for pardon and the recovery 



THE ATONING FACT. 297 

from it, and gives chastening effect to the ills which they 
may have already incurred. The agony thus incident to 
a " covenant of grace," love's devotion to the perfect, 
can fail as a substitute for sin's result, only in the case 
of the sinner who ignores it, tramples upon it as though 
it were " an unholy thing." 

Thus the agonizing devotement to the perfect which 
maintains the original unity of action and ideal, in all the 
evolution of conditions to a personal universe, reconciles 
the amplest development of benevolence with the im- 
perative behests of holiness, and bounds the vast sea of 
evil with a " ministry of reconciliation." The evolution 
of love discloses — 

1 . An absolute authority, the sacred imperative of the 
perfect. 

2. The propitiation of that authority by devotement to 
the perfect in all love's action which conditions finite 
being. 

3. The agony of love in its subjection to the free and 
full demonstration of evil. 

4. Sacrifice in undergoing this agony undeserved. 

5. Vicariousness, in that its agony displaces disaster 
which would justly result to sinners by their own action. 

Thus stripped of fictitious statements, symbolic forms, 
and modes of revealment, " love's devotion to the per- 
fect," agonizing because conditioned by evil, is an 
atonement for sin, a ransom for sinners, the atoning 
fact. 



298 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 

The great problem is to restore to the human mind something 
of the ideal. — Victor Hugo. 

The revelation of atonement is our next movement in 
outlining the evolution of love. Full consideration of 
this subject would constitute a complete Christology. 
But our present limits forbid the attempt to more than 
briefly indicate two things, namely, — 

1. The occasion for a revelation of atonement. 

2. The fact of such revelation, in Christ. 

The occasion, or need of a revealment of atoning facts 
must be regarded as being a state of human conditions 
which demands a supernatural intervention by divine love 
in order to make good to man those conditions which 
afford the basis of human faith and love. We have seen 
in former chapters that men may debase their natural 
conditions by abuses. This may be done to an extent 
that will obscure, perhaps obliterate, the facts upon which 
human faith can arise. Abuses wilfully and wickedly 
practised by one person may corrupt the conditions of 
a family or neighborhood. The sins of a generation 
become the debasing tendencies of succeeding genera- 
tions, who, though less guilty, may become more gross, 
materialistic, and brutal. Rejection of the ideal and 
devotion to actual self is a brute-like life ; and the ten- 
dency of it is to render man unsusceptible to spiritual 



: THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 299 

motives. It increases his desire for material good and 
pleasure, and deepens his unbelief in spiritual interests. 
Spiritual development depends upon faith in the unseen, 
the ideal perfections, and hence is impracticable when 
the implied facts in which faith confides are obscured by 
that abuse of perceived facts which makes them objects 
of covetousness and brutality. Thus, eventually, the 
authority, the need, and the means of an ideal life be- 
come obscured from those who, under better conditions, 
would sincerely follow and appropriate them. Persons 
and communities who by reason of superior position 
and power can elevate or depress their fellowmen, by 
selfish abuses, place in jeopardy the ultimate welfare 
of these fellow-beings. Keeping the " key of knowl- 
edge " they refuse to enter and prevent those who 
would. Thus it is possible to debase the conditions of 
finite life until they are not only abnormal, but wholly 
preternatural. 

Love must as a matter of justice permit these debased 
conditions, which human wickedness and weakness 
have established, to work the immediate destruction of 
mankind, or, in mercy, reassert and maintain the condi- 
tions to human perfection by supernatural intervention. 
The former would be to surrender the object of the uni- 
verse ; the latter would be to uphold it by a further evo- 
lution of love. " It is not, indeed a question of what 
love can do, but what love, as an objective determina- 
tion, m74st and will do." " When human perversity 
misappropriates the benevolence of love by making it 
the occasion for selfishness, and prosperous selfishness 
encourages the conviction that the creation is favor- 
able or at least indifferent to it, or resulting adversity 
begets despair, what manifestation does the evolution 



,Oo ^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

of love imply ? This is the whole question ; and there 
can be but one reply : The supernatural " (chapter i., 
Part II.). 

Victor Hugo seems a philosopher, as well as poet, in 
such sentences as these : " The great problem is to 
restore to the human mind something of the ideal ; " 
" The ideal, stable type of ever-moving progress ;" " The 
ideal, to this summit God descends, man rises." An 
ancient poet, who acknowledged his deep trouble from 
having observed the prevalence of the wicked, found 
relief when he paid his devotions at the shrine of ideal 
perfection. He says : — 

" When I thought to know this 
It was too painful for me 
Until I went into the sanctuary of God; 
Then understood I their end." 

These poets, living amidst the most civilized and in- 
fluential peoples of their day, perceived the human need 
of something to preserve the conditions of moral recu- 
p(iration, but did they recognize the method by which it 
must be disclosed? 

As the development of human selfishness advanced, 
becoming more expanded, complex, and intense, and 
more powerful to dominate human destiny, the test of 
love's ability to maintain its recognition in the human 
consciousness became more strenuous. 

It would be in the order of our outline to note 
the stages of this process, and to emphasize the points 
at which darker-growing phases of human depravity 
have evoked higher supernatural manifestations of love. 
Especially would it be pertinent to distinguish the 
points in human history where the natural manifesta- 
tions of divine love which afford the facts upon which 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. ^qi 

faith is based have been eclipsed or wholly perverted 
by their abuse ; and where supernatural revealments 
became the method of love's effort to condition faith 
among men. But, as other portions of this work 
sufficiently outline these points, they will not be con- 
sidered here. 

It is sufficient to note, for example, that human his- 
tory has been largely determined with reference to facts 
which did not exist at the time of such determination, 
but were supernaturally furnished to those who acted 
upon them and assigned as the data of the religious and 
political institutions which they founded and maintained. 
The knowledge of these unborn facts and persons, 
though it could not be gathered from existing data, was 
given in the form of prophecy. Its object was to con- 
dition the then present conduct of those to whom it was 
revealed. A distinguished illustration of history which 
has been determined upon conditions of the supernatural 
form is seen in the present existence and characteristics 
of the Hebrew people. It is undeniable that the cen- 
tral meaning of their prophecies and history has been 
the Messianic, or Christ, idea. It has been their bless- 
ing or bane accordingly as toward it they have been 
faithful or recreant. 

The Christian peoples of the earth, numbering about 
five hundred millions of souls, with institutions and re- 
sources of unequalled quality, power, and beneficence, 
can give no adequate account of their rise and progress, 
their civihzation, and the superior character of their in- 
stitutions upon wholly natural conditions. The central 
force in the conditions upon which their progress has 
been determined is, undeniably, the Christ ; and this 
central force is wholly unaccountable except upon the 



302 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

supernatural disclosure and authentication of divine 
atonement by Jesus of Nazareth. 

To say that these most influential movements in 
human history to afford common conditions to the 
people for individual purity and progress in personal 
character cannot be accounted for upon other than 
supernaturally given data is the same as to say that 
divine love has resorted to supernatural means to avert 
the hopeless decay and destruction of humanity, and to 
do this has thus re-established the conditions to faith 
and love. And all this is equivalent to saying that these 
conditions, as naturally given, have been so obscured 
at times as to establish occasions where love must super- 
naturally intervene ; further, that the supreme crisis in 
the existing conditions to human determination was 
the occasion for the revelation of atonement in the 
Christ. 

It was as though not only the natural, but the su- 
pernatural evolution of love, which had afforded the 
conditions to human faith in past history, had been 
thoroughly perverted. The people who had enjoyed 
the most advanced supernatural evolution of love, fitting 
them to lead the human race in the determination of 
personal character, had abused these conditions, had 
become mercenary and oppressive. Priest and teacher 
had by covetousness '' altogether gone out of the way ; " 
had become politically and religiously devoted to tem- 
poral things, instead of making temporal things subserve 
an idea] life. The Roman Empire, which now dominated 
the civihzed world, had become the foe of the ideal and 
the devotee of the actual. "The creature rather than 
the Creator" was the object of their devotement. 
Though the Stoic bewailed it, the State and the people 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. ^03 

were Epicurean. A few held that the hfe, but the many 
and the powerful held that to possess the pleasures of 
life, was the chief good. It was as though a benignant 
father had lavished treasure and care upon wayward 
children, which implied his solicitude for their reforma- 
tion and love ; had gone even further and declared in 
words, what his gifts had implied, his plans, his power, 
and his wish for their highest welfare, and forewarned 
them of disaster. But at last, when care and treasures, 
promises and warnings had exhausted their power to 
lead them to repentance, the inner, but infinite solicitude 
of love bursts forth in an agony of tears and blood. It 
was the solicitude of divine love which when disclosed 
to a human consciousness revealed itself to the world in 
the anguished appeal of a broken heart. 

The fact of such revelation in Christ. — We come now 
to consider that most conspicuous declaration of divine 
love which had hitherto arisen in human history. 

The Christ idea seems to have been one of the oldest 
ideas in possession of the human race. It seems to have 
been held, in some form or other, by so many tribes and 
nations, ancient and modern, that it is a question whether 
any tribe of men is without it in legend, song, or story. 
Its dim outline haunts the mists of prehistoric times ; 
and though floating like a distorted wraith, far back in 
unchronicled ages it holds a weird identity, apart from 
the myths which mingle there in shadowy indistinctness. 

Whether it be regarded as a reflected consensus of 
human need in all ages, or the more or less corrupted 
form of a revelation, given first to the first of our race, 
its most distinguishing characteristic is that the Christ is 
both divine and human. Trace the idea wherever you 
will through legend or myth or in the Pentateuch, the 



204 ^^-^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

Hebrew Prophets and songs, or the teachings of Jesus 
himself, or those of the Apostles, and you are ever con- 
fronted with the " Son of God " and the '' Son of Man.'^ 
Out of this manifold, two faces ever look upon you ; one 
so high-born that it screens its majesty within the other, 
which, in turn, yields itself to give human expression to 
the divine. 

The sacred Scriptures have a clear meaning when 
regarded as chiefly a human record of the Messianic 
revelation of love made by the Creator. Our view is 
simply that the divine personality in the Christ is the 
Creator, the " Only Begotten," " The Eternal Son," the 
true and living God, according to his relative mode of 
self-determination. This relative self-determination in 
God is distinctly set out in the chapter entitled " Being, 
As Conditioned ; " hence need not be further defined 
here. 

The human being, Jesus, we regard as a creation, a 
" second Adam ; " a person who, in his distinctly human 
self-determination, maintained a sinless life in faithful 
subjection to and loving interaction' with his Creator, in 
the same sense in which man in his original state did, or 
was intended to do. Moreover, in his harmony with 
this interaction and along the line of its development, 
there came to him the privilege of becoming the inter- 
preter of the subjective consciousness of divine love ; 
not only the perfectly interacting companion, but the 
embodiment and expression of the divine consciousness, 
the Creator, in the same sense that he w^as the embodi- 
ment and expression of his own human consciousness. 

We have said "it became his privilege" to have 
the divine consciousness, his privilege to interpret to 
man the subjective consciousness of divine love. In 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 305 

saying this we do not forget that he was created for this 
very purpose. Nor do we know that any human being, 
in the purity and accuracy of an untarnished nature, 
might not become a similar interpreter. But there was 
found among men no other " arm to save." But we 
must not forget that he was entirely self-determining, as 
a man ; that, as such, he determined his human charac- 
ter without sin ; and that his interpreting the divine con- 
sciousness was by the consent of his human volition. 
" He offered himself unto God." 

The gospel records contain a record of the life, teach- 
ings, and acts of Jesus as the Christ ; and if we regard 
these as records of a movement in the evolution of love, 
their true meaning and the secret of their world-wide 
dominance will appear. They are simple memoirs of 
words and acts which have remodelled civilization and 
directed the current of human history for over eighteen 
centuries, and are rapidly increasing in potency. 

The prevalence and prominence of the Christ idea in 
ancient thought naturally gave rise to pretenders to Mes- 
siahship. We have sacred and secular records of very 
early and frequent claims of this kind. Indeed, history 
and poetry are full of the claims of mighty heroes whose 
success encouraged, and the people flattered them into 
either the pretence or belief that they were demigods. 
Alexander the Great, it is said, sought to make this claim. 
If so, he was among the later warriors who claimed the 
double nature. But many among religious teachers had 
appeared. Indeed, the general expectancy of Messiah 
which prevailed in the civilized world in the day of the 
Caesars seemed to beget a mania for Messianic preten- 
sions. Because of this state of things some writers have 
jumped to the conclusion that Jesus was simply one of 



3o6 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

these pretenders. But such a conclusion implies certainly 
a very superficial view of the case ; and these writers seem 
merely to have " lost their heads " amid the abundant 
and curious information on this subject. The widely 
extended knowledge of the Christ idea, and the widely 
felt need of authoritative or other valid teaching in both 
religion and philosophy, together with the general under- 
tone of dissatisfaction with Rome, had doubtless inten- 
sified this expectancy. But the widely diffused knowledge 
of the Jewish Scriptures, and the notorious Jewish expec- 
tation of a deliverer had already reduced the vagary of 
public opinion to the accuracy which conceded that " sal- 
vation is of the Jews." Hence an appeal to the Jewish 
Scriptures found the original stock of prophecy and 
promise which, by force of its antiquity and its logical and 
ethical coherency, is manifestly that which had founded 
the idea, the literature, and general expectancy, as well as 
afforded all the corruptions and false pretensions which 
have clustered around Messiahship. 

The identification of the Christ became naturally a 
question of importance, in view of the rise of so many 
pretenders, and the alacrity with which the expectant 
people took up with them. Scepticism regarding the 
Messianic claimants had also become well developed 
among the thoughtful and educated. But an appeal to 
the written records of the actual promises and proph- 
ecies was the means of escape from myth and sham. 
Saint Paul, in the opening of his Epistle to the Romans, 
recognizes that in announcing himself as an apostle of 
Jesus the question which will arise in the minds of the 
people at Rome is this : How are we to know that the 
Messianic claims of Jesus are genuine? He squarely 
anticipates and answers this question in the outset, by 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 307 

stating that Jesus is identified as true Christ in both the 
human and divine natures of Messiahship ; that in the 
human department he is shown by the concurrence of 
prophecy to be the chosen of the house of David ; and 
in the divine nature designated by the exercise of power, 
in his resurrection from the dead, to be the Son of God. 
These statements evince the alertness which existed 
regarding this question of true Messianic identity, and 
also of the methods and standard by which it must be 
decided. The Messianic records made the requisite 
characteristics so minute that it was impossible that 
more than one claimant could meet their requirements. 
They unfold a vast series of facts, beginning with the 
announcement of a Redeemer to Adam and ending with 
Malachi's vision of the rising " Sun of Righteousness " 
with healing in his beams. So full, so minute, though 
incompatible with human anticipation, were the facts 
predicted of the Messiah that one has well said : " By a 
change of tenses prophecy may in many cases be turned 
into biography, and so peculiarly that in Jesus only, of 
all the human race, can the lines of Messianic promise 
meet." The family, time, and place of his advent are 
given by different prophets in different ages, but concur 
in identifying the " Babe of Bethlehem," of the family of 
David, at the appointed time, the dissolving of Judah's 
nationality. In the Gospels Jesus is identified at his birth 
as chosen for the Messiahship, so definitely as to leave 
no possible ground for the pretensions of any other. 
His being a special creation, "a second Adam," untainted 
by racial evil, is not only stated as fact, but emphasized 
by circumstantial and collateral facts. To any one who 
accepts the Messianic records, these external designa- 
tions of Jesus as the true Christ are conclusive. 



3o8 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



But to all, of any faith, Jesus evinced internal evi- 
dence that his life, teachings, and acts marked an advance 
in the evolution of divine love in its effort to condition 
human faith in love's ideal life. And this is the same as 
to say that he was identified as the Son of God. 

As a man, his faith was perfect. That is to say, 
he perfectly subjected his actual life to the ideal, 
and consequently developed an ideal manhood. He is 
regarded to-day as indisputably the one perfect man of 
all history. In him self-love, devotion to the actualiza- 
tion of an ideal self, is complete, — without a taint of 
selfishness. Thus he maintained perfectly harmonious 
interaction with his Creator, and was, consequently, 
" holy, harmless, undefiled." Inasmuch as truth is the 
theoretic which may be explicated from the ideal, his 
was a true life in every aspect and relation which he 
held. Thus he illustrated the evolution of love in its 
human conditions. '' The character of Jesus as it is 
depicted in the Evangelists is one of unequalled 
excellence. This is universally admitted. It is not a 
character made up of negative virtues alone, where the 
sole merit is the absence of culpable traits. It has 
positive, strongly marked features. It combines piety, 
an absorbing love and loyalty to God, with philanthropy, 
a love to men without any alloy of selfishness, and too 
strong to be conquered by their injustice and ingratitude. 
It unites thus, in perfect harmony, the qualities of the 
saint and of the philanthropist. It blends holiness with 
compassion and gentleness. There is no compromise 
with evil, no consent to the least wrong-doing, even in a 
friend or follower. But with this purity there is a deep 
well of tenderness, a spirit of forgiveness which never 
fails. With the active virtues, with an intrepidity that 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 309 

quailed before none, however high in station and pubHc 
esteem, there are connected the passive virtues of pa- 
tience, forbearance, meekness. The world beholds in 
Jesus its ideal of goodness." ^ 

" It was reserved for Christianity to present to the 
world an ideal character, which through all the changes 
of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with 
an impassioned love, has shown itself capable of acting 
on all nations, ages, temperaments, and conditions, has 
been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the 
strongest incentive to its practice, and has exercised so 
deep an influence that it may be truly said that the 
simple record of three short years of active life has done 
more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the dis- 
quisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of 
moralists." ^ 

But in addition to the ideal human character of Jesus 
there was manifested by him a class of actions which he 
himself professed were the actions of the *^Son of 
God ; " and these were actions which were recognized as 
at least superhuman by all who witnessed them. Ration- 
aHsm has sought to dispute the supernatural character 
of these actions ; apparently blind to the impossibihty of 
a person of moral and mental accuracy professing their 
supernatural, their divine origin, if such it were not. 
But rationalists have successfully shown up one another's 
failures to account for Christ and Christianity, without 
admitting the supernatural ; and have neutralized one an- 
other's theories. Baur exploded Strauss' theory of myth, 
and Strauss exposed the failure and evasion of Baur's 
historical theory ; while Kenan's romancing was a mere 

^ Professor Fisher, Manual of Christian Evidences. 
2 Lecky's Hist, of European Morals, vol. ii. p. 9. 



3IO 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



parasite of Strauss ' theory, and perished with that theory. 
The mutual neutralization of rationalistic theories is the 
grand outcome of rationalism. 

This self-confessed failure may be thus stated, — 

1. It is conceded that its writers have not adhered to 
the records. 

2. They have failed to explain the moral and religious 
revolution produced by Christianity. 

3. Their solution of the person of Christ is inadequate. 

4. They fail to account for the Christ idea. 

5. They fail to replace to the heart the power of the 
gospel. 

6. They were forced to abandon the Christian idea of 
God and adopt that of deism or pantheism. (After 
Christlieb.) 

Later rationalistic attempts, especially in Great Bri- 
tain and America have been in the nature of efforts 
to gather up and revive the shattered remains of Ger- 
man failures. A few magazine writers, novelists, and 
lecturers, probably unaware of the true line of living 
issues, have patched together the rags of worn-out and 
cast-off German failures, and have strutted in what they 
have conceived to be an array of "advanced thought." 

Perceptions, intuitions, judgments, affections, and vo- 
litions which must have been divine, made him, with his 
consent and co-operation, their interpreter to the world. 
Along the line of this subjection of his nature to God 
these divine actions were put forth. They superseded 
his human need of learning, answered the queries and 
silenced the arguments of the learned, and compelled all 
to recognize him as a perfect teacher, though he had 
never been a pupil, but always a master among men. 
He read the inner thoughts and intentions of men as an 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 



311 



Open book. If there were nothing else to mark the 
divine inteUigence in his teachings, the wonderful fore- 
sight of his conceptions would be sufficient. They teach 
an inner character and outer practice for man toward 
which humanity has been growing for eighteen centuries, 
but has not yet reached. All must admit that when 
civihzation shall realize these teachings the '^ golden 
age," the ideal age, will have been attained. His insight 
rejected the methods by which the wisest of men seek 
success. He adopted those methods which, in the eyes 
of human wisdom, stamped him as a weakling and cow- 
ard, but are now seen to have been dictated by the only 
possible conditions to universal and perpetual dominion, 
— the dominion of ideal being, the ideal universe. 

Miracles were a class of his actions to which he re- 
ferred his critics as the ultimate proof that the Creator 
was revealed in him. The object of this class of actions 
was, first, to enable men to identify their author as the 
Creator ; secondly, to place men in possession of the 
fact that the nature of the Creator is love, that the Cre- 
ator is a merciful Saviour. This was done in miracles 
purely physical ; then in physico-spiritual miracles, in 
which diseases were healed and sins forgiven. Thus in 
physical miracles was begun a progressive system of 
divine revealment which passed from physical miracles 
to physico-spiritual, and thence to the purely spiritual 
manifestation of divine love as a purifying agent in the 
human affections. 

The possession, by sincere men, of these two facts, 
the personal Creator and Saviour, gave them the condi- 
tions of recovery from selfishness and of return to com- 
panionship with God. The sincere were conscious of 
the need of access to the actualized ideal, the perfect. 



312 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

The actually perfect was revealed in these two facts ; 
and his sacred authority was reasserted to them. More- 
over, the means of recovering devotement to the ideal, 
by accepting the Creator as a loving Saviour, was placed 
within their reach. To settle, for the people, then and 
there, the fact of the Creator, wielding the forces of 
nature and the fact that the creator is a God who saves 
from sin by means of love, settled for them the founda- 
tion of "faith that works by love." 

When his followers should be sufficiently weaned from 
the actual and wooed to the ideal life which he con- 
stantly kept before them, by word and deed ; when, in 
other words, their hopes were turned from the formal to 
the spiritual, they should not need the contmuance of 
physical miracles. Their faith should then be able to 
grasp the purely spiritual reality of God and his love ; 
and a work greater than physical miracles results to their 
spiritual experience, restoring them to conscious har- 
mony with the Creator. Upon this purely spiritual phe- 
nomenon all that makes Christianity worth preserving 
has been propagated. It contains in it the facts of God 
as Creator and Saviour, self-dependent, holy, and be- 
nevolent. It is the restoration to man of ideal being 
actualized in God and actualizable by man. 

The gradual manifestation of the divine consciousness 
in Jesus is to be noted. Doubtless, such gradual mani- 
festation to those among whom he worked was needful 
for them ; and it is a natural inference that as God thus 
gradually unfolded love's supernatural declaration to 
men, through him, his consciousness of God in him 
should be gradually developed. 

The mysteriousness of our spiritual nature is, of 
course, acknowledged on all hands, yet the fact of our 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. ^j, 

conscious being is the first, broadest, and surest knowl- 
edge we have. Although we are " most ignorant " of 
the mode " of what we are most assured " as a fact, yet 
the significance of the facts it reveals to us cannot be 
shghted because we do not understand the mode in 
which they subsist. 

Consciousness is the knowledge of these facts ; and 
as we become conscious of these facts we recognize and 
act upon them as our own selfhood. The rise of this 
selfhood is gradual and systematic. It is a self-conscious 
unit, gradually becoming conscious of its powers and 
susceptibilities. From the dawn of conscious sensation 
we progress into the consciousness of perception, com- 
parison, reason, emotion, self-determination and moral 
consciousness. Thus gradually different phases of 
consciousness arise within us, as occasions in and around 
us call them into exercise. They arise, not one after 
another, by abrupt divisions, but rather running into, 
gradually superinducing and overlapping one another ; 
one in process of arising while another is definitely exer- 
cised ; some gradually affording the occasion for the 
gradual rise of others. While they are simply different 
classes of action of which the one person becomes con- 
scious, yet these actions are so distinct in our conscious- 
ness of them that they are, severally, termed orders, or 
forms, of consciousness. But when so designating them 
we do not profess to understand the modes of their sub- 
sistence or differentiation, but we simply and unavoid- 
ably recognize and act in pursuance of them as facts of 
which man gradually becomes conscious. In the same 
sense, when we speak of the divine consciousness in 
Christ, it is not an attempt to explain the mode of its 
subsistence with the human person in whom the divine 



314 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

consciousness arose, but we simply and unavoidably 
recognize the fact of the gradual development of divine 
self-consciousness in him and the manifestation of divine 
powers and susceptibilities by him. 

Psychologically, it seems only a question whether the 
action of the Creator, which constitutes our nature and 
sustains the conditions upon which our own personal 
action arises, may not himself act volitionally also, as 
we do, upon and by this same nature. What we term 
our natural powers are simply the actions of our Creator, 
of which he is perfectly conscious. The use of these 
powers is our own personal action ; and it is only in 
their use that we become aware of them. This use is 
our interaction with the Creator ; and our consciousness, 
in whatever form it may be, is simply our knowledge of 
our part of this interaction. Now there is no ground 
upon which we can deny or doubt that the Creator may 
not only consciously afford these powers for our use, but 
also use them for himself. 

There is one exception to this statement that the 
Creator may use as well as furnish our natural powers. 
It is this : such of these powers as are used only as we 
will are powers which the Creator has put it out of his 
hands to use, except with our consent. That is to say 
that our will is ou^ own action, and that which we only 
can do cannot be employed by the Creator unless we 
consent to act with him. Hence, for example, the 
attention we give to our sensations in order that we 
may have definite perceptions, and which we give to 
comparing these and forming judgments whereupon 
emotions are aroused in us, is our own voluntary act. 
The intentions which are formed by selection of motives 
are also purely our personal act ; and the carrying~out 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. ^jr 

of these intentions, which is determination, belongs to the 
same class. Attention, intention, and determination, in 
any person, are his own acts which constitute uses of 
his created powers and render him conscious of those 
powers. Hence it is correct to say that while the 
Creator's action posits our natural powers, he cannot 
determine their use without our consent. Assuming, 
however, that a man consents to the use of his powers 
by the Creator, there is no ground or datum upon which 
any one can say it is impossible, impracticable, irrational, 
or improbable that, upon fit occasion, they should be so 
used. 

It is quite apparent, also, that the Creator's reasoning, 
devotement, sympathy, and energy, when employing the 
natural power or faculty of any man as an instrument, 
must render that man conscious of them. They must 
become self-conscious in that man, as certainly and 
definitely as though they were his own acts. God's con- 
scious perceiving, reasoning, wishing, loving, intending, 
determining must develop in the consciousness of the 
man. This is just as natural and inevitable as it is that 
the forms of human consciousness develop by man's 
own use of his powers. 

Hence it must also be clear that the human choice 
which consents to this divine action with him will main- 
tain a clear discrimination of the divine consciousness 
through all its developments. Now, we do not say that 
the divine consciousness becomes a unit with the 
human consciousness, nor say what the two, as self- 
discriminated, hold in common. This would be to 
attempt what we distinctly regard as beyond our pene- 
tration. But we do say that there is no ground 
whatever for scepticism regarding the possibihty or prob- 



3i6 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



ability of the Creator's expressing his thought, intention, 
wish, or will from the same point in his own action at 
which he conditions the rise of a man's consciousness 
and volition. Nor is there ground for denying that such 
expression by the Creator is the using of the nature of a 
conscious human being ; that such use must be con- 
ditioned upon the consent of such human being ; that 
such conceded use must render that human being 
conscious of the divine perception, thought, intention, 
love, or energy thus expressed through him ; or that 
this condition, namely, the man's consent, must maintain 
in his own consciousness a discrimination of what is 
divine and what is human. 

Possibly some may assert that creative action in us 
has not posited the conditions of any forms of human 
consciousness other or higher than what men usually 
develop. How can we know that? Our only means 
of knowing what powers are conditioned in us is in 
becoming conscious of our powers by exercising them. 
Until exercised we are unaware of them. We can 
affirm what we have consciously acted upon, but can 
neither affirm nor deny what our action has not, as yet, 
developed to consciousness. In his present animalism 
it is a marvel and mystery that man should develop the 
higher modes of rational consciousness. Why man 
should transcend the brute which is conscious of sen- 
sation, perception, comparison, and volition, and yet does 
not become conscious of logic or moral sense, is as 
mysterious to us as that a sinless human being should 
experience the divine personality self-conscious within 
him. No man is in a position to deny that any human 
being, who, in the clearness and correctness of his 
created nature, carries forward his self-determination 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. ^^^ 

in harmonious interaction with his Creator may not de- 
velop the conditions of a divine consciousness within 
himself. 

Since the various forms of human consciousness are 
not developed at once, but gradually and by use, it is 
easy to understand that the divine consciousness would 
arise in Jesus, only as he should become the instrument 
of divine action of various kinds and degrees. Hence, 
to think upon the subject intelligently is to think of 
Christ as a created, sinless, human being, who con- 
sented, or yielded himself to be the instrument of the 
Creator's personal revealment to men. Though he was 
created for this mission, yet he was not necessitated to 
it, but freely "offered himself unto God " as the inter- 
pretation or expression of the "Only Begotten," the 
Creator and lover of man. 

It seems clear, then, that the creator gradually dis- 
closed himself in Jesus, in the process of revealing his 
love to man. Jesus, thus gradually becoming conscious 
of the divine consciousness, gradually developed the 
effect upon himself of that God-consciousness. He 
spake, acted, and endured as God, though he continued 
to often speak, act, and suffer, as a man ; yet recognizing 
the divine " Sonship " when speaking as God. The 
Gospel records note this *^ effect " from time to time. 

His own professions and doings plainly evinced the 
graduality of this development. At the age of twelve he 
showed divine perceptions to the " doctors," in the 
temple, and was conscious that he was "about his 
Father's business." In his baptism he publicly professed 
to be set apart to the Messianic mission ; professed his 
consent, as a man, to be used as the medium of special 
divine ministration. 



3i8 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



This man, Jesus, conscious now that he had " offered 
himself unto God " to be his instrument of personal 
communication to men, sought a period of isolation, 
wherein, for forty days of fasting and prayer, he reas- 
sured his faith and settled himself in adjustment to this 
unique and exalted capacity. In this pecuHar relation 
to God peculiar temptations must have beset him, but 
these were met and repelled by that unswerving faith 
which was the perfect subservience of his actual self to 
the promptings and behests of that Messianic ideal which 
was gradually disclosing to him. To have this ideal 
gradually unfolded to him, that he might actualize it, 
" the stable type of ever-moving progress," was his life- 
scheme, — a life which lived upon " every word that pro- 
ceeded out of the mouth of God." As new advances 
of divine action, upon occasion, arose upon his con- 
sciousness, new cares and more strenuous tests of his 
faith pressed upon him. In seasons of solitude and 
prayer he ever and anon brought himself up to the 
intent of these new revealments. As he went forward 
and demonstrated them to the world his spirit triumphed 
and rejoiced in the achievement. We see him thus in 
what has been termed his " mediatorial prayer " (John 
xvii.), rejoicing in such harmony of divine and human 
consciousness that he speaks as the " Eternal Son " who 
had completed his earthly ministry. The complete and 
rapturous appropriation of the human by the divine 
nature seems the grand feature of his exultation. The 
divine Son exclaims through the human Jesus : " O 
Father, glorify me with thine own self, with the glory 
which I had with thee before the world was." 

But this does not evince the entire revealment of the 
Creator and Saviour. It only shows a completed stage 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. ^j^ 

or gradation, in the process of the Creator's revealing 
himself in the consciousness of Jesus. It is a long 
psychic distance from this stage to that where he de- 
clares to his disciples, ^' K\\ authority hath been given 
unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and 
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 
I command : and lo, I am with you always, even unto 
the end of the world." 

Between these widely differing degrees of the divine 
consciousness in Jesus he manifested definite advances. 
But a brief time passes after his exultation because of 
having finished his ministry, before we find him in Geth- 
semane weighed down with mental agony. Although 
the divine Son had definitely and openly prompted him 
to speak of " the glory he had " with the Father " be- 
fore the world was," now, we are told, " he began to be 
greatly amazed and sore troubled." He said to his 
disciples, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
death ; " and falling on his face he exclaimed, " O my 
Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me." 

Whether Jesus had upon former occasions, when new 
phases of divine consciousness unfolded in him, expe- 
rienced such a severe test of his willingness to interpret 
God, we are not informed. We are told of his many 
long seasons of fasting and prayer, but the circumstan- 
tial character of the record here leaves no doubt that 
he was appalled to a degree that tested his devotion to 
the utmost. Nor was it the simple imminence of death 
that terrified him. He had known and spoken with 
composure of his death, as a fact which was soon to 
transpire, but when he began to be conscious of the 



220 ^^-^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

infinite stress which divine love sustained between per- 
fect devotion to ideal being and saving benevolence to 
sinners he was amazed and appalled. Its interpretation 
was more awful than death. It was more agonizing 
than contemplated crucifixion. He seemed to pause in 
his great undertaking. But when by persistent, agoniz- 
ing prayer he had become adjusted to this new evolu- 
tion of love in him he was able to say : " Nevertheless, 
not my will, but thine be done." 

An unfaltering actualization of his ideal as a human 
instrument of divine disclosure marks his course from 
this point until we find him in the agonies of crucifix- 
ion. So complete was the subjection of the human to 
the divine, and so great had the preponderance of the 
divine manifestation become, that his human nature 
seems now but actuated by the divine mind. It seems 
so because of the perfect surrender of his human will 
and the sympathy of his human feelings, now wholly pre- 
occupied with interpreting the divine consciousness 
rapidly and overwhelmingly unfolding within him. He 
had told the high-priest of his approaching divine sov- 
ereignty and glory, and had announced to the Roman 
governor that he should lay down his life of himself, 
and that no man had power to take his life from him ; 
that he held an independent hfe, and could lay down or 
take up its human revelation at will. He permitted the 
crucifixion to proceed, but he knew that the divine 
agony of love must reveal itself in him before the cross 
could cause his physical death. And on the cross he 
manifested an agony to which he had yielded himself, 
which contrasted strangely and immeasurably with that 
of the thieves who were suffering crucifixion beside him, 
or with the uncomplaining endurance he had previously 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 32 I 

evinced as " a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." 
The words in which he expressed his state of mind 
while undergoing this suffering show : — 

1. As a man he died faithful to God. 

2. He died of mental agony. 

3. This was the revelation of divine love in its agony 
of devotion to ideal being while conditioning the salva- 
tion and perfection of sinners by extended benevolence. 
He had formerly rejoiced in revealing the divine con- 
sciousness of truth, — rejoiced in exhibitions of divine 
power in proof of his Christly mission; but now the 
divine consciousness fills him with a sense of the agony 
of divine love, that love which has exhausted argu- 
ment and cannot invoke power to enforce reciproca- 
tion, belief, or obedience. That love, which is the unit 
in which perfect hoHness and perfect benevolence in- 
here, must simply endure man's free perversion of its 
amenities in order that it may maintain the position in 
which it can pardon the sinner and help him back to a 
holy and loving companionship, when he voluntarily 
shall renounce his sin. 

This is the hour of the revelation to man of this help- 
less divine agony. In the interpretation of this " aton- 
ing fact " Jesus derives no relief from it by means of the 
divine power or prevision which had at other times sus- 
tained him. He exclaims : " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me?" Yet he does not waver in 
his will as the interpreter, the revealer of God's atoning 
attitude, love's deepest consciousness in its evolution, 
but freely "offers himself unto God." Having said, 
" Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit," he closes 
the dying agony with the exclamation, " It is finished." 

Thus in agony he revealed divine love's devotion to 



322 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, 



the realization of a perfect universe. Thus "he was 
delivered " to set before men the sohcitude which divine 
love endures because of "our offences." Thus he 
translated the great "atoning fact" into human terms, 
that it might condition the salvation of the world by its 
full revelation of love's ideal Hfe, the unimpaired au- 
thority of that ideal and the beneficent means of its 
realization. 

But the evidence that this death is atoning suffering 
is afforded to man in order that it may effectually re- 
establish the conditions to human recovery from sin. 
The object of divine revealment to men, we have seen, 
is to evince that divine benevolence, which permits our 
race to continue its sinful course, does not renounce 
holiness, has not surrendered perfect intention, is not 
lax in its devotion to ideal being, but is at one with 
holiness and is intended to "lead to repentance." It 
is to evince that although mercy affords all but limitless 
opportunity to evil, it is nevertheless a protest against 
it and an infinite motive to renouncing it ; to evince 
that, upon renunciation of sin, the sinner may find help 
in divine love to return to purity and companionship 
with God ; and thus evince infinite love as a motive to 
man's eternal security in freedom and harmony with an 
ideal universe. That this divine agony may thus be 
clearly identified to human intelligence as " the atoning 
fact," in all its phases, its atoning quality must be de- 
monstrated. In a word, dependent man must find in 
it the independent basis of salvation. 

The resurrection of Christ is this demonstration. " He 
was raised again for our justification," — our proof, or 
vindication. To Pilate, who had sentenced him to 
death, to the soldiery, who had executed the sentence, 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 323 

to the priests and mob, at whose behest sentence and 
execution were accomphshed, his agony seemed but 
punishment. To some, of more kindly mood, it prob- 
ably seemed a pitiably disastrous ending of a noble life. 
There are those even now who regard it as but martyr- 
dom inflicted by his enemies ; and yet others who argue 
that it was the punishment due him as a substitute for 
the sins of such as a divine predetermination had elected 
to be saved. But each and all of these views of his 
agony imply quahty and efficiency in the sufferer quite 
the contrary of that independence which he had pro- 
fessed before Pilate. Nothing but the agony of a devote- 
ment which can endure, without impairment of quality or 
power, until it fully conditions the ultimate defeat of sin 
and the triumph of love, the realization of an ideal uni- 
verse, can be the agony of atonement. Suffering is an 
atonement, in fact, if willingly endured until the sufferer, 
unimpaired in character and power, achieves the end 
which involved his suffering. But the sufferer fails to 
atone by his sufferings if they imply helpless infliction, 
correction, or penalty, on account of the cause for which 
he suffers. The self-sufficiency of the atoning one is 
disparaged to the extent he is thought conscious of cor- 
rection or penalty. 

It was requisite, therefore, that if the sufferings of 
Christ were more than the physical pangs of crucifixion, 
were the revelation of a strain or stress upon the divine 
consciousness which was developed in the agony of 
Jesus, an agony incident to love's unswerving devotion 
to the perfect while affording merciful permission of sin's 
complete self-development, — if, in a word, his sufferings 
revealed the divine " atoning- fact," — it was requisite that 
these sufferings should be clearly exhibited as self- 



224 ^^-^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE, 

imposed. They must evince that they were not correc- 
tive or penal sufferings, but were voluntarily accepted 
with an undertaking to achieve a self-proposed end. 
Hence, his self-submission to this death afforded the 
utmost human interpretation of divine love's essential 
agony and its uncompromising antagonism to sin, but 
unfailing benevolence to the sinner. His resurrection 
exhibited his shame and death as having neither im- 
paired his character or power nor as having imphed im- 
perfection in his devotement to perfection of being, but 
as a self-imposed and successful interpretation to the 
world of the holiness and benevolence of a love which 
endures unimpaired until it can *' save to the uttermost." 
His resurrection declared that his sufferings were for 
neither correction nor punishment, but atonement. 
Raised from the dead, his moral attitude and quality un- 
impaired, his power undiminished, he demonstrated that 
atonement was a fact in God and was now truly, fully 
revealed to man. He is in an attitude now to proclaim 
moral recuperation, spiritual purifying to the world. The 
divine agony evinces that perfect holiness and benevo- 
lence are one in love's ideal universe. This divine agony, 
interpreted to men in the sufferings of Christ, makes the 
divine benevolence evident as a motive to holiness in 
men. The divine lenience, instead of intending oppor- 
tunity and encouragement to evil, is re-installed in the 
consciousness of men as loving forbearance, a motive 
'•'which leadeth to repentance." The incompatibility of 
benevolence from a holy Creator to a world of the 
wicked and vile is explained by the agony of love. The 
way back from guilt and moral degradation is cleared, 
and every sinner may "come boldly to the throne of 
grace." 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. 325 

Enough, perhaps, has been presented to clearly set 
out the atonement as revealed in Christ. It is doubt- 
less clear that this is not a "" satisfactionist theory," a 
"moral influence theory," nor a "commercial theory." 
Nor is it the '' governmental theory " in the ordinary 
sense of that title. But it is a governmental theory in 
the sense of an ideal family government. Hence, if we 
term it a theory at all, it is the Parental Theory. But 
above all, it is the Atoning Fact, the agony of love in 
the Creator, which he endures because he will neither 
falter in the perfect determination of benevolence nor his 
perfect devotion to the holy ; because, in a word, his 
nature is love, eternal devotement to the perfect — in 
which perfect holiness and benevolence are at one — 
at any cost. 

That love which is the nature of independent action 
in the self-determination of the infinite ego, and pro- 
jects an ideal universe, discloses in the atonement its 
independent ability and purpose to maintain the condi- 
tions upon which a free but sinning world can cast off 
sin and achieve eternal security in free companionship 
with God. By enduring, unimpaired in character and 
power, its unspeakable agony, it maintains in hoHness its 
devotement to the realization of its ideal, and maintains 
its limitless benevolence, however perverted and abused ; 
until the free universe demonstrates the futility of sin 
and the independence of love, and at every point in 
the history of each sinner affords the conditions of re- 
pentance and return to righteousness. Every returning 
sinner finds the remedy for his past sins and present 
guilt, not in any compensation he can offer, but in the 
agony of divine love which endured them, — endured un- 
impaired in hoHness and benevolence ; and hence, con- 



326 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



tinues "mighty to save." Every heathen who offers a 
sincere prayer, or in his heart turns from what he deems 
evil to what he deems righteous, thereby recognizes and 
appropriates the divine mercy ; turns from the actual to 
the ideal life, from the dependent to the independent. 
By thus appropriating divine mercy he acts upon the 
conditions w^hich the divine agony has afforded him; 
even though he is ignorant of the historical interpreta- 
tion of that agony in Christ. The knowledge of that 
historical interpretation would, doubtless, vastly increase 
the motives to righteousness and exalted character 
among the heathen ; hence, the reasons for gospel mis- 
sions among them. But more of this further on. Every 
soul, whatever his belief, who sincerely deprecates his 
selfishness and cleaves to conscience impHes, though 
unwittingly, in such action the authority of the ideal 
over the actual, and appropriates the "atoning fact." 

Thus the " atoning fact " answers the burning question 
of the universe, Does love realize perfect unselfishness 
and yet maintain the moral authority of its hoHness? 
Thus, also, the revelation of the atoning fact in the suf- 
ferings of Christ puts man in possession of the full in- 
centive force of both the moral authority of God's 
perfect holiness and his perfect benevolence. The ob- 
scured natural implications are in Christ personally 
declared to man. 

The mutual subsistence in love of moral purity and 
the perfect carrying out of benevolence cannot be 
thought without implying the agony of love. Nor can 
atonement be thought a reality, except as that action 
which continues true to the perfect throughout the con- 
ditions and abuses of a free universe. And, in disclos- 
ing to man this awful dominance of the ideal, love 



THE REVELATION OF ATONING FACT. ^27 

reveals its independent self-sufficiency as the projector 
and upholder of a free universe who is at once holy and 
perfectly beneficent. 

This revelation of independence and unswerving de- 
votion to the ideal, the true, furnishes man with the con- 
sciousness of (i) God's devotion to perfection of being; 
(2) assures him of the presence of a power that is 
equal to the renovation and perfecting of the universe ; 
and (3) imposes upon his conscience the absolute 
moral authority of this revealed criterion. By the first 
this action enables the world to discriminate its sin ; by 
the second, exhibits the opportunity and power for right- 
eousness ; and by the third, " sets judgment in the 
earth." 

Moreover, this atoning action evinces the ever-extend- 
ing arms of divine benevolence, beckoning and wooing 
sinners, able and willing to save all. Thus is revealed, 
in Christ, the divine attitude, which is the real " mercy- 
seat," with its awful agony, the real "blood of sprink- 
ling." Acceptance of these by the sinner is that faith 
which subjects actual to ideal life. The sin-burdened 
soul, saying, " I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," finds 
here the "throne of grace." 



328 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



CHAPTER VI. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 



And they shall become one flock, one shepherd. 
And they shall never perish. — Jesus. 

EscHATOLOGY, the doctrine of " ]ast things," is a term 
which has generally been applied to the events which 
are expected to mark the ending of human affairs on 
the earth, and the establishing a fixed destiny for all 
dependent persons. Our use of the term, however, can 
only apply to certain states of personal development 
which will characterize what we have termed the ideal, 
or perfect universe. The perfect universe is the goal 
of love's evolution in its present cycle ; but we do not 
contemplate that perfection as a fixed end or state, but a 
perfected equipment for future, ever-advancing cycles of 
personal progress, — the disembarrassed companionship 
of finite persons with the infinite person. 

This perfected equipment will be the outcome of 
forces which are now in operation, the final resolution of 
questions which are now in process of being determined ; 
and hence our eschatology is made up of the corollaries 
of this resolution. It does not threaten an arbitrary 
intervention of almighty power to reward friends and 
punish enemies in a special or extra-vengeful sense. It 
is the sum of results which will have been determined 
by the personal universe upon the conditions evolved by 
love. All-conditioning love is no respecter of persons. 



ESCHA TOLOGY. 2 2 Q 

Our planet, the earth, is of course a small affair in the 
world of quantities, and our race may be but a small 
company in the universe of persons. But our planetary 
life signifies this much, at least : it is a form of the lowest 
conditions to the origin and development of personal 
creatures. How long the planet will continue to serve 
that purpose, and whether its functions will undergo a 
change or have an end, must be matter of speculation 
in the absence of a definite revelation. But this much 
seems clear : our race will continue this earthly life until 
the final crisis, which is stated in "The Solution of Evil," 
is reached, when, on the one hand, racial and social 
abuses will have been corrected by the progress which 
will result from faith and love ; and when, on the other 
hand, physical and social retribution will have destroyed 
the uncorrected and incorrigible elements of earthly 
society. 

Moreover, the crisis passed, such will be the common 
consciousness of love's excellence and of the turpitude 
of evil that the lower tutelage of race conditions will 
be wholly superseded. Their flesh-and-blood form will 
be superfluous, and unable to contribute anything to the 
perfection of personal life, will disappear. Whether this 
disappearance will be gradual, by the process of racial 
retribution in physical death, or a sudden and simulta- 
neous transformation of all then upon the earth, is a 
question of mode, and hence is a mystery which may 
be a matter of revelation, but the fact is implied in the 
evolution of love. 

The faithful persons thus changed — probably " in a 
moment, in the twinkling of an eye" — will join "the 
goodly company " who like them have attained to the 
common consciousness of universal companionship with 



330 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

God. When race conditions are thus cast off we shall 
probably have no use for the planet, at least in its 
present state. 

There still lingers, however, a suggestion that the 
planet may continue in some form to be a theatre of 
interest to human spirits. This suggestion arises from 
the interest in the complete solution of evil w^hich only 
members of the human race may have in common. The 
forms in which the persistence of faith and the final 
self-defeat of evil shall be accomplished by our race 
may give its members a planetary grouping until each 
individual shall have entered upon the full consciousness 
of the perfect, universal companionship, or shall have 
sunken into the complete isolation of selfishness. How- 
ever this may be, the utter self-defeat of evil, the persist- 
ence of faith and love, and the resultant ideal universe 
abide as the essential eschatology of love's evolution. 
In whatever grouping the sometime members of the 
human race may find themselves, they are, nevertheless, 
factors in this mighty problem, and their several destinies 
are the corollaries of its solution. 

Individual destiny is the question which ^' stands 
highest in our hopes and sinks deepest in our fears." 
This, because of natural, rightful self-love. Where, or in 
what conditions, does the solution of evil place each per- 
son concerned with it ? This ground has virtually been 
surveyed in the chapter, " The Solution of Evil," hence 
we need only sum up here the results there reached. 

Four general classes comprehend all the members of 
our race : the innocent, the faithful, the selfish, and the 
incorrigibly selfish. 

The innocent include, first, idiots, and perhaps "in- 
fants of days." Their innocence is not moral, but natural, 



ESCHATOLOGY. 33 1 

like the innocence of a bird or a lamb. Never having 
exercised self-determination, they have not attained 
to individual self-consciousness. They are persons 
only in the sense of a bundle of personal conditions. 
Their life has not been one of self-determined per- 
sonality, but merely the spontaneity of race conditions. 
Hence physical death, which is merely racial retribution, 
the dissolution of race conditions, must, so far as we 
can affirm without a revelation on the subject, end their 
being. As to the idiotic, this statement applies only to 
those who are wholly so. There are some classed as 
idiotic who are but partially so unfortunate, but who are 
consciously self-determining. Yet their self-determina- 
tion is exercised upon such distorted conditions that 
they do not discriminate moral motives. Although they 
have by self-determination attained positive personality, 
they must be classed as innocent persons who will survive 
physical death, relieved of the defective organism which 
occasioned their idiocy. Again, some of the idiotic have 
evinced moral discrimination, and developed positive 
moral qualities, and hence, according to their moral 
determination, must be classed with either the faithful 
or the selfish. 

There are tribes of men who, we are told, scarcely 
evince moral discrimination. Excepting a few in- 
dividuals among them, they seem to have no personal 
determination, manifest none but racial qualities, and 
herd or mate from force of merely race conditions. 
Their selfishness is not more positive than the spon- 
taneity of race instincts, nor is their sincerity distinguish- 
able from the simplicity of natural impulse. If this is a 
true representation their personal existence must be 
thought to end with the collapse of race conditions in 



232 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

physical death. But we are prone to discredit these 
representations and believe them to be rather hasty 
conclusions affected by laying undue importance upon 
external culture as the basis of moral character. The 
elements of moral character are not largely derived from 
external culture, but chiefly from intuitional facts ; they 
are born in us. And because they are intuitive they are 
universal ; as a rule, all men have them ; and for the same 
reason, they are uniform in all men. Since innocence 
and guilt, piety and impiety, arise from internal elements 
and outer universals which in no way depend upon ex- 
ternal culture, it is easy to underestimate the moral 
strength of the uncultured. The morbid "animalism" 
which they derive from the degradation of racial and 
social conditions which ancient idolatries have imposed 
upon them, doubtless renders gross and dull their 
spiritual perceptions ; insomuch that they do not 
personally transcend infantile and idiotic conditions 
until much later in life than is the case among en- 
lightened peoples. Hence a larger proportion of them 
will probably perish with the dissolution of physical 
conditions. 

Many individuals, not idiots or infants, who seem to 
never exercise any considerable degree of self-deter- 
mination may be found in all tribes of men. Their 
physical death must be thought as either a passing into 
the future state of infantile innocence, or having sunken 
in personal consciousness to the level of merely race- 
conditions, or perishing in physical dissolution. 

The less ignorant, who practise self-determination in 
very crude conditions, as the great mass of the heathen 
world for example, may develop a feeble flame, emitting 
no light but evincing life^ like a wick of " smoking 



ESCHATOLOGY. 3,3 

flax ; " they nurse within them a faith in something upon 
which they persistently depend as God. It is a some- 
thing in which they hope for better conditions ; some- 
thing which they invoke in the hour of trouble or 
suftering or death ; something for which, indeed, some of 
them are willing to suffer or die. In such crude 
conditions, renouncing selfishness they attain to har- 
mony with all-conditioning love, either as innocent or 
as positively faithful. 

Children and all of any age, in all lands, who have 
exercised personal determination in any degree, have 
attained individual personality, but have not sufficient 
intelligence to have intentionally chosen selfishness, as 
such, will survive physical death as innocent persons. 
We have stated substantially in "The Solution of Evil :'' 
After self-determining action is once begun, however 
faintly, the personal nature is individualized, and indi- 
vidual self-consciousness takes its rise and retains its per- 
sonal identity through all subsequent changes, until, by 
self-determined abuse of the personal nature it may be 
sunken in complete self-limitation and ultimately lost. 
The rise and earlier development of personality is 
doubtless in accordance with circumstances, and the 
instinctive impulses upon which it acts may have been 
depraved by ancestry and social influences. Its debased 
racial conditions may impose upon it disease, defective 
physical organization, feebleness, or early death ; and 
social surroundings may afford it little but villanous in- 
citements. Yet the implicit sincerity with which it 
personally acts in accordance with these conditions is an 
innocent, yes, virtuous use of its personal nature, and 
determines its character as one of innocent inten- 
tion. Not until it is sufficiently advanced to deliber- 



334 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



ately and of purpose reject pure intention and adopt 
selfish intention does it abuse its personal conditions or 
form corrupt character. Hence if physical death over- 
take it while in this character of personal innocence it must 
be thought to persist in a future state as an innocent 
person of morally pure intention. 

All of any age, in all lands, who have exercised 
personal determination in any degree, but have not 
sufficient mental development to have chosen wicked- 
ness, as such, are innocent and in essential harmony 
with divine love. They take rank with that class of 
beings whose further development will be in the absence 
of temptation, who " do always behold the face " of 
God. They must depend upon environment for con- 
sciousness of moral security until self-conscious security 
is acquired by association with those whose security has 
been self-determined " through much tribulation." 

The faithful, — a class which comprehends both those 
who have attained steadfast security in faith and love 
and all who, even through much of failure and waver- 
ing, still persist in the endeavor of self-conquest ; as also 
those who, while advancing in the consciousness of an 
ever-widening horizon of knowledge and trial, ascend to 
higher altitudes of faith, realizing deeper harmony, en- 
larging freedom, and approaching entire security in com- 
panionship with love's motives, sympathies, and spirit. 
From the weakest craft which rocks on the sea of hfe, 
but bears for the same port to which the erect and 
steady steamer points her prow, there floats the ensign 
of the faithful. 

" Him that overcometh ! " Those persons who, by 
that faith which subjects the actual to the ideal, have 
overcome their susceptibihty to selfishness, will have 



ESCHATOLOGY, 235 

determined themselves in harmony with divine love to 
a degree which renders their companionship with God 
self-persistent. They need no objective demonstration 
of the failure of evil, need no removal of objective mo- 
tives to sin. They have cancelled selfishness by faith. 
Their faith has overcome the world in its sinful power 
and splendor. When wickedness " did abound " their 
love did not grow cold. They have determined their 
largest freedom in moral harmony and perfect security. 
They have demonstrated their faith in the self-deter- 
mining perfection of love. They have actualized an 
ideal egoism by practising an unselfish altruism. Los- 
ing their life for love's sake, they have found it. 

But perhaps there are pure persons who have ever 
dwelt in an environment of unmarred love. They have 
never known sin nor a temptation to sin ; never, even, 
a hurtful error. They could, for aught we can see, con- 
tinue to develop securely under such circumstances. 
But, as among themselves, they could never experience 
self-determined security. Their susceptibility to a selfish 
development of self-love, if exposed to temptation, could 
never be beyond question. Nor can we conceive that 
their self-determination could, in the absence of disci- 
pline by error and temptation, ever attain the widest 
freedom which is possible to a person whose faith, love, 
and progress have been developed and confirmed amid 
the strenuous exigencies of virtuous hardship. A secure 
and free universe cannot be thought possible, except as 
self-determined ; hence the grand nucleus of a perfect 
universe must be the " triumphant host " who shall have 
" come up through great tribulation " and " have right to 
the tree of life." 

In association with this *^ triumphant host," and wit- 



Z2>^ 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



nessing the demonstrated failure of evil, angels who may 
have hitherto known only conditions of justice, dwelHng 
only in an environment of divine glory, may " desire to 
look into " and learn such lessons of demonstrated faith 
and love ; and may thus determine in themselves a con- 
scious aversion, hence unsusceptibility, to selfishness. 

Children who have passed from human conditions 
without human temptation or probation into the con- 
ditions and associations of the blessed, dwelling ever in 
the environment of overmastering incitement to love, 
will also, by association with self-determined saints, 
attain to the same transcendent security which is reahzed 
by the faithful in their self-determined unsusceptibility 
to selfishness. To afford to these pure but undeveloped 
ones the means of determining a self-conscious security, 
as against possible selfishness, something is requisite. 
That requisite is in the objective motivity afforded by 
association with the self-determined security and the 
intimate harmony which are evinced in the wide freedom 
of the faithful ; and, also in the universal consciousness 
resulting from the persistence of love and the self-defeat 
of sin. 

This we deem the true solution of the relation of all 
persons who in innocence pass, by death, from this 
world's environment of temptation without having at- 
tained to steadfast self-adjustment to moral conditions. 
This includes not only deceased children, but many of 
maturer years who have attained conscious, individual 
personality, but who, because of extreme ignorance, 
natural stupidity, or other defective conditions, may 
never have consciously determined for or against a life 
of faith. 

But the discipHne of error and temptation, such as 



ESCHATOLOGY. ^^^ 

human life here is intended to afford, is essential to the 
development of that subjective aversion to selfish 
motives which, along with confirmed faith, establishes 
the consciousness of eternal security in finite persons. 
Hence, that consciousness of security could never be 
attained if, like infants and imbeciles, or possibly angels, 
all finite persons were to determine their characters 
amidst that immaculate environment which we term 
heaven. Hence the struggle of human hfe, so far as it 
is a struggle with temptations, ignorance, and weakness, 
is only that without which a perfectly secure universe 
could never be attained. And when once sin has arisen 
this struggle must include the demonstration of faith and 
love^ as against sin, in order to achieve ultimate security. 
Consequently, individuals who, from any cause, miss 
the probation of error and its incident temptations, 
do not belong to the securely self-determined universe, 
but must rise from their mere innocence to self-conscious 
security by determining their characters with reference 
to the universal public consciousness which has been 
established by the faithful who have wrought out the 
practical solution of evil. 

Remember that the development of securely pure 
character is but the discipline of self-love in devotion to 
self-perfection, in harmony with the perfection of others. 
Remember that this devotion is complete susceptibility 
to the ideal, the true, the perfect. Remember that it 
precludes devotion to the pleasurable satisfaction of 
means, — that is, precludes selfishness. Remember that 
the rise and self-defeat of selfishness have stripped it of 
all plausible illusions, exposed it as infinite crime, and 
abolished its objective motivity. Remember that de- 
votion to the realization of perfect being is the estab- 



ss'^ 



THE EVOLUTION OP LOVE. 



lished ambition, the enthusiastic public sentiment of the 
faithful, established upon their faith and determined by 
their love. This intimate companionship with God, the 
steadfast purity and all but boundless freedom of their 
spontaneity, are but the exponents of a pure self-love, 
rendered unsusceptible to selfishness by their devotion 
to perfection of being. Remembering these things, it 
will be easy to see that innocent persons developing 
in the midst of such associations must readily mature 
a self-love which is wholly in harmony with these asso- 
ciations. The sentiment and activities of a universal 
life which results from the demonstration of love's 
perfection and sin's infinite failure and disgrace render 
the temptation to evil impossible. That question has 
been settled forever. Hence it is clear that these 
innocent but undeveloped persons must develop into 
a like unsusceptibility to selfishness and a like devo- 
tion to perfection of being. 

Security in devotion to self-perfection is the only ob- 
ject of probation ; and since this devotion may be at- 
tained by innocent persons when associated with the 
faithful, we can see no occasion for a " future probation " 
for children and innocent heathen. Unless we accom- 
modate the term " probation " to mean this progressive 
development of the innocent in association with the 
faithful there appears no standing-ground for the suppo- 
sition termed "future probation." Failure of the inno- 
cent to develop the highest susceptibility to love and all 
its qualities, and aversion to selfishness, in such an envi- 
ronment is inconceivable. To obliterate the liability of 
their self-love to perversion is to establish their perpetual 
moral harmony. Hence to secure this obHteration is 
the only significance of probation. There could be no 



ESCHATOLOGY. ^39 

occasion for a probation, no liability of self-love to selfish- 
ness, if persons could be created with a " ready-made " 
experience that love is perfect action, that its ideals are 
essential truth, that the realization of its ideals is the 
highest good ; and, on the contrary, that selfishness is 
demonstrably infinite folly and turpitude, an object of 
universal aversion and contempt. But in a community 
which is a demonstrated result of all these facts a sup- 
posed probation is equally superfluous. Knowledge of 
the infinite infamy of selfishness, the self- sustained per- 
sistence of love, and the actual and evident strength and 
freedom of the faithful constitute conditions of a civili- 
zation in the midst of which the faith of these innocent 
persons is exercised. Constant fellowship with such 
transcendent type of society incites and informs their 
self-love, and leads it up from the consciousness of 
security from sin by means of association to the con- 
sciousness of self-determined security. 

Future punishment of the selfish is simply the self- 
defeat of uncorrected evil. As this self-defeat has been 
outlined in " The Solution of Evil " we need only con- 
sider here its main aspects. These are the fact, the 
mode, and the duration of the perishing agony. 

In much of the theological discussion of this subject 
these questions have been strangely mixed. Affirming 
future punishment as a positive infliction of special 
tortures by divine resentment. Biblical expressions, which 
employ accommodated language to express the effect 
upon man of his right or wrong adjustment toward the 
changeless nature and invariable action of God, have 
been construed in the most literal sense. Whether 
representing God as in the petulant mood of ranting 
fury toward the wicked or in the ridiculous attitude of 



240 2^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

spewing the luke-warm out of his mouth, this method of 
interpretation is alike crude and absurd. In the same 
way it affirms the fact, mode, and duration of the catas- 
trophe of sin as an eternal fit of divine choler in process 
of irate satisfaction. The theological revulsion from 
these teachings has been equally undiscrirainating. 
Stumbling at such views of the mode, it has bhndly 
denied the fact and duration of final penalty. While 
the former view exhibits God as a raging and pitiless 
tyrant, the latter implies he is a doting imbecile. The 
average religious character induced by these views in 
those who have accepted them has generally evinced 
narrow though virtuous severity in the one case, easy- 
going sentimentality in the other. 

The Fact. — Insomuch as the all-conditioning love of 
God maintains the conditions to human innocence, 
faith, and love, whether by natural or supernatural modes 
or both, selfish self-determination rejects the object of 
these conditions, perverts the conditions in their use, 
and hence limits and degrades the person who so deter- 
mines himself. Whoever perishes does so by his own 
act. All who appropriate the conditions to faith " wash 
their robes " and are saved. All who reject and pervert 
them " defile themselves " and are lost. Having arrived 
at a state of maturity sufficient to reject righteousness, 
as such, they drop away by physical death from these 
conditions to faith and love, and thus lose contact with 
the means through which their harmony with divine 
love might have been determined. Their self-deter- 
mined persistence in selfishness is their self-defeat. 
Their characters are dehberately self-determined selfish- 
ness, and consequently the intervention of physical 
death removes them hence in uncorrected sin. Dying 



ESCHATOLOGY. ^41 

without having actualized their quasi expectation to 
"sometime," as a matter of convenience, turn to re- 
pentance and faith, they must be thought to have entered 
upon a future state of retribution. Obdurately impeni- 
tent while enjoying immunity from retribution, their 
quasi intention to reform at some convenient time is 
only a selfish forecast which can never be capable of 
faith. It is simply a form of moral incorrigibility. 

We have seen that love, in creating dependent per- 
sons, requires that the rise of their personality must be 
conditioned at the lowest point at which progressive 
self-determination is possible. Now if this racial and 
social life affords the lowest and easiest conditions which 
all-conditioning love can posit for the rise, progress, and 
perfection of finite persons, then the debasement of 
individual life in these conditions must be thought such 
as to be totally unsusceptible to any conditions to per- 
sonal improvement which love can ever afford. To 
those who have perverted and debased these lowest 
conditions of personal development, physical death must 
be thought a change which renders them conscious of 
conditions quite hopeless. By no line of reasoning can 
we conclude that the abuse of our present nature can 
result in an improved nature more susceptible to correc- 
tive faith. And if individuals continue to debase earthly 
conditions which are most favorable to progressive mo- 
tives, perverting them from the moral susceptibility of 
childhood innocence to self-determined depravity, death 
must be to them a change to a more radical and hope- 
less maladjustment toward love and God. 

The mode of future penalty is expressed in the " sink- 
ing of personahty," which is outlined in the " Solution 
of Evil." The consciousness of disharmony with the 



242 ^^^ EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 

conditions of his personality, and the absence of an 
environment which can minister to his morbid desires 
must make it a situation of unrelieved despair to the 
lost soul. In his earthly life he had given morbid 
development to affections for merely social gratifica- 
tion ; had determined himself upon the assumption that 
this life is the whole of his being, and gave to it his 
chief devotement. This practical infidelity to his per- 
sonal being not only rendered his race affections morbid 
and brute-like and ignored or perverted his spiritual 
nature, but acquired a false, ungodly, vicious, personal 
character. He is not only unsusceptible to godly mo- 
tives, but to the extent his personality is determined, he 
impersonates aversion to the qualities and motives of 
love-determined life. Having by physical death lost the 
facilities for selfish gratification which race conditions 
and perverted social life had afforded, he is now a mor- 
bid energy, destitute of those sources of satisfaction. 
He is now insatiate, appalled, tormented by the reac- 
tion, retribution, of all-conditioning love, " the wrath of 
God." 

Prophet, poet, and teacher have thrown around these 
realities much of imagery to picture to our minds the 
dreadful nature of this catastrophe. Some have sought 
to render them more horrible by materiahstic interpre- 
tation, but our object is to simply trace the main facts 
which are impHed in personal being. The elements of 
our God-given personal nature which we have incor- 
porated into our personahty and made our own in 
perverted use may give us greater agony in their retrib- 
utive process than would the stretch and strain and 
burning by externally applied tortures. Love is the 
most intense flame ever kindled, — hot enough to fuse 



ESCHA TOLOGY. 34^ 

and crystallize the harmonies of an immortal universe 
and to consume the dross of selfish ages. 

" Ah, love ! Love ! Stainless life of God ! Man's will 
Alone avails to mar thy universe ! 
Still lov'st thou man ! — though he by chosen ill 

His self-perversive selfishness doth nurse ! 
Ever thy blessing turns he to a curse ! 

Till fixed in Self's insensate hate of God, 
To him a torment is love's sweetest verse. 
Thy flame burns on, as on the ages plod. 
But seems, in sin's perverted realm, the wrath of God." 

The mode of final retribution is not definitely de- 
scribed in the sacred Scriptures ; hence different views 
are held by those who accept them as containing super- 
natural revelations regarding the mode : first, that it 
consists of eternal consciousness of misery or torment ; 
secondly, the tendency of sinful life is seen in this world 
to be self-limiting to personality, and will result in final 
extinction of the personal consciousness of the sinner, 
and so be eternal. The statements of the Bible may be 
interpreted perhaps by the first view, but clearly and 
certainly by the second. But the fact of eternally 
irrevocable penalty is the obvious teaching of these 
sacred writings, conspicuously and unflinchingly the 
teaching of Christ, although there is difference of opin- 
ion among " orthodox Christians " as to mode. '' The 
Evolution of Love " sustains the second view. This is 
not annihilationism nor restorationism, but the self- 
sinkifig of personality. 

The Duration of personal retribution is final, forever. 
Different degrees of personal depravity must result from 
difference in the degrees of definiteness with which 
different persons recognize and abuse the conditions to 



344 



THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 



faith and love. Hence among the selfish there must 
result different grades of personal development in selfish 
intention, and correspondingly different degrees of tur- 
pitude and ill-desert. Everything which enters into 
motivity, whether of inner susceptibility or outer incen- 
tive, affords occasion for the exercise of personal deter- 
mination, and according to this motivity does personality 
make itself positive and persistent. And according to 
the magnitude, so to speak, of the motivity to righteous- 
ness is the degree of his turpitude who sins against it. 
This accords with the general principle that the merit or 
demerit of any personal act, good or bad, is in propor- 
tion to the magnitude of opposing influences. 

It is obvious, then, that according to the degree of 
motivity three things are equally determined in the lost 
sinner, namely : the persistence of personal conscious- 
ness j the depth of turpitude ; and the degree of ill- 
desert. The agony of perishing, therefore, will be grad- 
uated, in both intensity and duration, by the individual 
self-determination of the lost ; " and to whomsoever 
much is given, of him shall much be required." " But 
he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall 
be beaten with few stripes." The self- wrought catastro- 
phe of selfishness will not be more terrible than its own 
antagonism to love shall make it, nor more bitter than 
its own self-induced aversion to that love which will 
condition its despair. " If I make my bed in hell, be- 
hold, thou art there." 

" How long the process of sinking personality may 
continue is a question which we have no exact data from 
which to answer. The relative persistence of different 
persons in the agony of perishing is implied in the nature 
of personality. One's personal self-consciousness may be 



ESCHATOLOGY. ^45 

thought persistent in proportion as his selfish purpose is 
definitely determined. Hence, selfish personaHty in its 
most elaborate determination may be expected to cling 
to its purpose longest, and therefore persist longest in 
the perishing process. ' He shall be beaten with many 
stripes.' But all-conditioning love cannot be thought 
to continue the personal nature in conscious torture 
after the consciousness of self-determination is lost. A 
person has perished ! " (See " Solution of Evil") 

Thus the evolution of love affords the realization of a 
harmonious universe by the self-determined security of 
the faithful, the conditioning of the innocent in the 
society of the faithful, the lapse of non-determined 
natures, and the sunken personality of the obdurate. 
The ground having been cleared, in the universal con- 
sciousness, of all question of love as perfect action, the 
perfect adjustment of being, the moral possibility of any 
falling away of the innocent or faithful, in the presence 
of infinite motives to love and the total absence of selfish 
motivity, is forever transcended. 

The Harmonized Universe will become a matter of 
universal consciousness. We emphasize that this state 
of self secured freedom and harmony will be known by 
all as the self-determined universe. The evolution of 
love implies it as an object ; and it is the outcome of 
the solution of evil. Hence, in this respect at least, the 
personal universe is destined to be one community. 

This is the perfected equipment for future, ever- 
advancing cycles of personal progress. Whether it has 
been for our race, alone, or for the universe, the solution 
of evil, incident to the evolution of love, must establish 
an all-pervading consciousness which will afford new 
conditions to personal development; — conditions in the 



246 THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE, 

midst of which innocent though inexperienced millions 
may be created, without dread of their defection. They 
may be safely launched upon a Hfe of personal freedom, 
created in higher types, perhaps the highest type, of in- 
telligence and power which it is possible to create. 

The need of planetary, racial, or physical conditions 
of any kind, may be wholly superseded. The self- 
determined harmony and security of a personal world or 
universe having been established, Hke the foundation- 
walls of a majestic temple, there will be no further need 
of " scaffolding from the ground " to carry up the still 
ascending superstructure. The " weak point " of finite 
personality, self-love's susceptibility to selfishness, is now 
bridged and buttressed forever. For aught we can see, 
the physical orbs will, gradually or simultaneously, dis- 
appear. The divine activities which have constituted 
their phenomena may cease ; their splendor " dissolve 
like the baseless fabric of a dream ; and leave not a 
wreck behind." The real, the personal universe will 
have been established ; and the evolution of love will 
press on, without a jar, to determine altruistic perfection. 

A New Cycle is begun. It is the opening of a new 
stage of development, upon which the resources of love, 
the nature of universal self-determination may unfold in 
ever-progressing self-consciousness. Those who under 
besetment of selfishness had regained the devotement of 
love by being " faithful in a few things " are now 
equipped to be '' rulers over many." It is the dawn of 
eternity's '^ golden age," the undisturbed companion- 
ship of finite and infinite, the enlarged condition and 
opportunity of perhaps hitherto unexploited creative 
energies. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



